


Adventures First, Explanations Take Such A Dreadful Time

by Frea_O



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Western, Bad Parenting, Coffee Shops, Drunkenness, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Skating, Kid Fic, Neighbors, Pirates, Sharing a Bed, Space Opera, Summer Camp, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 37,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frea_O/pseuds/Frea_O
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity and Oliver change depending on the universe, but some core truths are...universal. A collection of trope-based fic prompted to me by Tumblr users.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vigilante Puppy Pile (Or Lack Thereof)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sharing a Bed Trope_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then._ — Lewis Caroll
> 
> A full list of the stories by trope and title can be found [here on my Tumblr](http://freaoscanlin.tumblr.com/post/92835091759/i-know-who-i-was-when-i-got-up-this-morning-but-i)!

The third time she found them curled up on mats in the Foundry, Felicity sighed.

They weren’t even in a puppy pile, which seemed like it would be ideal because the Foundry was always really cold. She kept her servers down there. Maybe it was just that of the two of them, there were a lot of sharp angles and rock-hard muscles and a vigilante puppy pile didn’t feel as comfortable as it sounded. But Sara was practically shivering in that stoic way of hers, her chin quivering, and even though Oliver pretended to sleep, she could tell he wasn’t actually doing that much better than Sara. Wearing a shirt to sleep in might have helped, but Felicity wasn’t going to complain about the view.

“You two are ridiculous,” she said as she set her purse on her desk. “Shouldn’t you have found a place by now? Either together or separately?”

“There were…hang-ups.” Oliver sat up, rubbing at his hair. It was sticking up a little.

“Why aren’t you at least using the sleeping bags I bought for this place? They’re green, and really cute.”

“We couldn’t find them,” Sara said. She sat up as well, arms hugging her knees. She seemed to share Oliver’s aversion to shirts. Given that her six-pack was nearly as impressive as his, Felicity also wasn’t going to say anything. “If you tell me where they are, I’ll go get them.”

“No, actually, I think you two need a real bed. You’re coming home with me.”

The two vigilantes blinked at her in unison. “What?”

“I’ve got space in the apartment I barely get to see any more for both of you to get at least one good night of sleep. I won’t take no for an answer. Just let me tackle this firewall and save a third-world country I saw on the news tonight and then we’ll be out of here.”

When she looked up to see that both of them were blinking at her, she shook her head. “That was a joke.”

Sara rode with her in her Mini-Cooper, though Oliver followed on the bike. For once, her own sense of neatness and the fact that she was never around worked in her favor because when they stumbled into her apartment, looking a little sleepy, she didn’t have to apologize for the mess. “Do you want anything to eat? Drink?” she asked. “I think I’ve got stuff in the fridge? Maybe? It’s been awhile.”

“It’s nice,” Sara said, looking around at the apartment. “I like it. Strong colors.”

“Thank you. I’m kind of nuts about colors, I spent weeks playing around Kuler before I could decide how I wanted this place to look when I moved here. Um, I’ll set up on the couch, let you two have the bed. It’s a really big bed, plenty of room.” She caught the change in Sara’s face and the way Oliver’s expression shuttered. “Or…not?”

“Is it okay if I take the couch?” Sara asked. “I can’t—people beside me. Not while I’m sleeping.”

That explained why there hadn’t been a vigilante puppy pile. “Oh,” Felicity said, eyes wide.

“I won’t attack anybody, I promise. You’re all safe,” Sara said quickly. She had that look about her, the one Felicity had secretly started calling the Sara Sadness.

“No, it’s fine by me. It’s actually a really comfy couch, I’ve fallen asleep on it after so many _Katekyo Hitman Reborn!_ marathons. Let me get you some blankets and a pillow. The kitchen’s through there, bathroom’s over here.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “Do you have some spare blankets? I’ll set up on the floor.”

“You sure?” Sara asked. “I mean, you two could take the bed.”

“I don’t think…” Oliver said.

“You were just telling us the bed’s plenty big, weren’t you, Felicity?” Sara said. “Isn’t the point? We were supposed to get at least one decent night of sleep.”

“Well, yes,” Felicity said, feeling very confused as to why Sara was pushing this. She’d seen Oliver fall asleep in some of the weirdest positions ever. The man had a talent. If he wanted to sleep on the floor, she wasn’t going to prod him about it.

“So there we go. You two take the bed, I’ve got the couch, and we’re good.” Sara took the blankets from Felicity and gave them a too-bright smile, making little shooing motions toward Felicity’s bedroom.

“Okay,” Felicity said the moment after she closed the door after Oliver. “That was weird, right? That was definitely weird. I thought the two of you were a thing.”

Oliver shrugged. “A bed sounds nice, but if it makes you uncomfortable, I can sleep on the floor. I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, right, like I’m going to make the Starling City Vigilante sleep on the floor. Good one. Um, I’ll take that side. I’m a side-sleeper but I don’t snore or anything. I have a white noise machine, but if that bothers you, I can sleep without it.”

To her surprise, Oliver actually perked up a little in the middle of toeing off his shoes. “Does it have a waves setting?” he asked.

“I think so, yeah.” Felicity crossed to the machine and flicked through the presets until the soft sound of waves crashing to the shore filled her bedroom. Every part of her felt nervy and hyper-aware of the fact that Oliver was in her bedroom with his gigantic presence and his six-pack and…just all of it. Her night had definitely taken a turn for the surreal. “There we go.”

“Thanks. I…” He peeled off his hoodie, leaving the well-worn white T-shirt and the work-out shorts on. All of the saliva in her mouth immediately dried up, so she turned away to focus on something else. “Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping without it. Too quiet.”

“Oh, right, the island,” she said as she dug through her dresser for pajamas. Her first instinct was the flannel ones that covered everything, but she knew from experience (well, falling asleep beside him on a plane once) that Oliver was like a furnace. So she grabbed a pair of her sleep boxers and an ancient MIT rowing T-shirt. “I didn’t even think about that. I think we should get a white noise machine for the Foundry. It might be soothing and you have to admit, things get kind of tense there.”

“It’ll go well with the noise from Verdant, yeah,” he said as she slipped into the bathroom.

“You mock, but I think it’s a good idea. I’m always looking for ways to make that place better. Oh, you know what, I could just incorporate it into the speakers. It wouldn’t even be that difficult. Sara would appreciate it, too, I think. I’ll do that tomorrow.” She kept up the chatter as she changed and washed her face.

When she brushed her teeth, Oliver knocked on the bathroom door. She opened it and raised an eyebrow.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a spare toothbrush, would you?”

She held up a finger and dug in her medicine cabinet. Her dentist always gave her a toothbrush during her visits and she had an electronic toothbrush, so she always had spares. Oliver took the toothbrush and offered toothpaste with a thanks and set to brushing his teeth, a great deal more vigorously than her. For a moment, they were silent, standing next to each other and brushing their teeth together.

He made her tiny bathroom, with its Parisian wallpaper and the cute little wombat soap dispenser, look even smaller.

She left him to wash his face and crawled onto her side of the bed. Usually when it was just her, she sprawled across the middle with her laptop taking up one side as she browsed whatever she’d missed throughout the day. But now she tried to make herself as small as possible, especially when Oliver moved over to the bed.

“Well, good-night,” he said, and cleared his throat. He climbed into the other side and Felicity froze all over because frankly, it had been a _long_ time since she’d had somebody shift the mattress that wasn’t her, and this was weird. So weird. He was her boss at QC and her partner in Arrow matters—he’d said so, and there wasn’t any taking that back—and now they were in bed together, and it was weird.

“Yeah, it’s a little weird,” Oliver said. “But that’s okay. Thanks for sharing the bed.”

Felicity contemplated the odds that a hole might appear in the mattress and swallow her away to less embarrassing climes. “I just said all of that out loud, didn’t I?”

Oliver put his hand on her shoulder for a second and then turned over. “Good night, Felicity.”

“Good night, Oliver.”


	2. The Foundry Is So Metal and Underground, You've Probably Never Heard of It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The _Pitch Perfect_ AU for [earnmysong](http://earnmysong.tumblr.com).

Felicity’s first day at Starling City University goes...less than well.

Her last mix is nearing 20k hits and the statistics are through the roof, she’s getting an entirely new subset of fans in Korea that makes her excited because her buddy on youtube, FlashMasterBarry07257, says that the Koreans can create _insane_ remixes, so really, she should be having a good day, but the minute she walks through the door of her new dorm room, she realizes: she really, really should have read all of those snail mail letters SCU sent over the summer. Because then she could avoided this moment right here.

“ _You_?” is the first thing her new roommate says to her.

Felicity stares in horror. “You’re joking.”

Chien Na Wei groans. “Your real name is Felicity Smoak?”

The horror quickly abates. “We’ve been in the same class since kindergarten. I’m not sure if I’m more insulted that you used to steal my tamagotchi or that you never bothered to learn my name.”

So yeah, her old bully is her roommate. This was a bad idea. She should never have listened to Walter when he made the deal that she attend his university for at least one year. Things don’t improve much at the Student Activity Fair.

“Wait, your name is really Princess Thea?”

“No, of course not. I just go by that so working class bitches don’t call me that behind my back.”

Of course, Felicity has a first-row seat to watch “Princess” Thea insult a buuunch of Occupy SCU protesters, and that’s a memory she’ll cherish. Less so is the memory of wandering by the Starling Darlings table and being insulted by an extraordinarily pretty brunette with some serious issues about being overly uptight. The Lance sisters are a piece of work, though the younger one seems kind of nice.

The only positive thing about her day is Cute Guy in the Car, who serenades her with an air guitar solo to Queen’s _Another One Bites the Dust_ , but she’ll probably never see that dude again.

Until she walks into the campus radio station (“The Foundry! So metal, you’re gonna lose your mind!”) and there he is, smiling with his arms crossed over a very soft-looking _Breakfast Club_ T-shirt. “Hey! I know you,” he says.

And the babbling begins.


	3. Camp!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Summer Camp AU_ for [bethanyactually](http://bethanyactually.tumblr.com).

“Oh, that’s Oliver-and-Laurel,” Sara says, picking up a stick from by the park bench and winging it as hard as she can out onto Pond Wanawaka. It goes a surprisingly long distance and Felicity makes a mental note that her new bunkmate and coworker is incredibly strong. “Or Laurel-and-Oliver, depending on who you ask. They see each other at the beginning of the summer, they’re all lovey-dovey, and by the fourth of July, the biggest fireworks around here are them fighting again.”

“Um, wow,” is all Felicity can say to that.

Sara throws another stick. “If you keep staring, they’re gonna catch you.”

Felicity wrenches her gaze away from surreptitiously watching the couple stroll along the lakeshore. She can’t help it. Oliver of Oliver-and-Laurel has his shirt off, and it’s hanging out of his back pocket, and he’s, well, he’s cut like a Ninja Turtle, if she’s going to be honest. But also stolen property and off-limits, so she feels guilty when she looks back at Sara.

The blond just laughs. “Don’t worry, they get that a lot. Curse of being that ungodly pretty.”

“Ugh,” Felicity said. Her cheeks are pink, she knows they are.

“I want a Coke. Let’s go to the mess hall and see if we can talk my dad into breaking into his stash.”

“Your dad?” God, she’s so new to this camp experience. She didn’t even go to camp—not even computer camp, which would have been right up her alley, let’s not kid ourselves here—when she was of the right age for it, and now she’s seventeen and they expect her to be a responsible person in charge of children as young as five, and that’s incredibly short-sighted, if you ask her.

And the worst part is that her mom took her laptop. Felicity’s got her tablet, but it’s going to be a long summer full of sunburn and bugs. Sara, though, Sara seems nice. Felicity’s not good at making friends, considering she hasn’t really found anybody since her best friend Kayleigh moved away in the sixth grade, and she’s been kind of freaking out for weeks about being a camp counselor-in-training and having a bunkmate. But Sara just greeted her with a “’Sup?” and an offer to show her around Camp Wanaweep, and it’s kind of nice to have her very own guide who so far doesn’t think she’s lame or talks too much.

She’ll change her mind by the end of the summer, Felicity’s sure.

“Oh, you really are new. My dad’s in charge of this place. I pretty much grew up here.” Sara pops her gum. “My house is up that way.”

“But you’re staying in the cabins?”

“Obviously. I mean, do _you_ want your dad looking over your shoulder all the time?”

“I—I wouldn’t know,” Felicity says. “But I guess, yeah. My mom, she’s my mom, you know, she’s started snooping around my room and reading my diary, but thank god she’s pretty technically illiterate because I may have, um…” Thankfully she stops before she admits to several felonies and FBI firewalls. She was bored, okay?

“A lot of porn?” Sara asks, nudging her with an elbow.

Felicity goes red and kind of stutters, which is of course when Oliver-and-Laurel appear as if out of nowhere. And then Felicity’s kind of busy choking and gagging on her own spit because _wow, good one, Smoak, you are so amazingly smooth, it’s just so shocking that you’ve never had a boyfriend_.

“Hey, hey,” Oliver says, dropping Laurel’s hand. “Are you okay? Hands over your head, that’s it.”

Felicity obeys almost by instinct, clasping her hands together on top of her head, and shortly thereafter, she can actually breathe. The mortification’s never going to leave, granted.

“What did you say to her?” Laurel asks Sara.

“I asked if she—” Sara somehow catches Felicity’s glare in time. “Liked it here? It’s just an accident, no need to yell at me. Save the lifeguarding duties for actual lifeguarding, Sis.”

“Sis?” Felicity manages to say, weakly. She clears her throat and turns and there’s Oliver, who is unbelievably tall and his muscles are in like high-definition from this close, but they have nothing on his eyes, which are very, very blue.

“You okay?” he asks, concern wrinkling his forehead. Felicity manages a weak nod.

“Well, okay,” Sara says. “Felicity, I should probably introduce you to Laurel, my sister. She’s the lifeguard here, as you’ve probably figured out. And Oliver’s our archery instructor. Ollie, Laurel, this is my bunkmate and new best friend forever Felicity Smoak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Further Meta about the Summer Camp Series** :
> 
> Oh, you know they'd be best camp buds all summer, like Sara makes Felicity get off of her tablet and participate in camp stuff more often, and Felicity holds Sara's hair when she gets drunk and pukes all of her feelings about Oliver up. And Felicity just holds onto her new best friend when Sara tells her about what happened between her and Oliver and Laurel the summer before, when she and Oliver sneaked away on a camping trip and were gone for five nights, lost in the woods north of Camp Wanaweep. And how it took months for Laurel to start talking to her again.
> 
> And when Sara gets food poisoning because of the camp cooking, Oliver stops by the cabin to give her, like, a teddy bear and Felicity's guarding the door, all  _I really don't think that's a good idea_ and Oliver looks a little sad and tells Felicity that Sara's got a good friend in her. 
> 
> And a couple of weeks later, Sara tells Felicity that she thinks Oliver has a crush on her and Felicity's like  _what? No. No, no, no, not getting involved in that_. And Sara's like,  _you'll see_ _._ And Felicity and Oliver end up slow-dancing at the end of summer dance, and Sara's like  _told you so_ while Laurel and Tommy make out in the corner.
> 
> And Sara and Felicity keep in touch with emails and stuff and Sara even takes a train to come see Felicity during the winter for a couple of days.
> 
> She doesn't hear from Oliver. Not even once. They're Facebook friends but Oliver never says a word.
> 
> And Felicity comes back to camp the next summer and there's a new CIT who's their new martial arts master and Sara cannot stop talking about how awesome Nyssa is. And Felicity can kind of tell that something's not exactly right with Nyssa, but Sara likes her so much, and Felicity tries to be happy for her friend. And Oliver's gone for the first week, but then he comes back to be the archery instructor again and Thea's with him, and she's tiny and talkative and totally spills the beans about how Oliver kept looking at Felicity's Facebook profile and moping, the huge sap, while Oliver is like, " _Thea"_ between his teeth. And they're so awkward and adorable together.
> 
> Thea and Sara, of course, totally conspire to get them together on one of the cheesiest first dates ever. And things progress really well, like Felicity's really not used to having a guy interested in her and she starts spending more and more time with John Diggle, who runs the wilderness preparation classes, and Oliver, and Laurel and Tommy are even there, and because of it, she doesn't really notice that Sara's acting weird.
> 
> Until she comes back to the cabin after a long walk with Oliver (and he kissed her and it was amazing and is it weird to talk about your first kiss with a guy to your best friend if said guy is also the guy that came between her and her sister a couple of years ago? She hopes not because she can really use a friend) and she finds Sara, like, drinking way too much because Nyssa  _said something._ Or Nyssa's father is forbidding their relationship, and Felicity realizes she's been kind of an absent friend, so she stays up until sunrise with Sara, passing the bottle of tequila back and forth and just talking, Sara mentioning how upset she is that Laurel doesn't even like her anymore and Felicity finally talking about her mom and how she doesn't know her dad.
> 
> Luckily, it's Diggle and not Lance that finds them the next morning, which means they can hide the tequila and head to their daily activities, feeling very, very hungover.


	4. Felicity and the Cute Coffee Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Coffee Shop AU_ for [jupisan](http://jupisan.tumblr.com).

The Caffeine Queen is the best coffee shop in town.

Just ask anybody. You can especially ask Felicity because whenever she’s having trouble with a client or a project isn’t going well, you can usually find her there. The barista, Sara, makes the most amazing chai lattes and Felicity’s there so much that on her breaks, Sara comes over and hangs out at her table and Felicity’s even helping Sara with some of her homework (Sara went back and got her GED and is doing really well at SCCC) sometimes. The other regulars are pretty great, too. John Diggle’s going to Starling City U on the GI Bill so between gigs at the security firm, he’s usually a couple of tables away, studying. Laurel Lance is in law school and visits her sister when she needs a “sanity break,” though Felicity can tell things are kind of weird between the sisters.

And then there’s Cute Coffee Guy.

He’s apparently a friend of Diggle’s because they do some kind of handshake/high-five hybrid thing. Felicity kind of thinks Diggle is secretly laughing at Cute Coffee Guy, but Cute Coffee Guy’s usually got a tiny smirk on his face, so he can take it. He always orders the same thing (so does she, actually, so that’s not a strike against him) and the first time he came in, he gave her a little smile as he walked by.

Felicity knows that Sara knows him, but she is absolutely not going to ask about him, not even after she sees him again and he says, “Hi” and she vaguely manages to stammer something back that’s close enough to English to count.

He comes in with a friend sometimes, a cute dark-haired guy that flirts outrageously with Laurel. Felicity can’t help but notice that Laurel doesn’t study quite so hard on those days.

She doesn’t usually come to the CQ to work on Thursdays because students have longer breaks on Thursdays and CQ is right by the Davenport campus, so it’s always crowded. But her client is driving her nuts and the quiet in her apartment is worse, so Felicity orders her chai latte and gives Sara and Roy (the new hire) a huge tip because they look frazzled and overworked, and then she sits down at her laptop for quiet.

An hour passes. People come and go, but she’s focused on this security problem, so she hunkers down…and out of the corner of her eye, she finally sees it.

Cute Coffee Guy is sitting at her table. He’s got an empty coffee cup beside him (wait, so does she, where did that second chai latte come from?) and a full one in his hand, and he’s ignoring both of them to focus on the Highlights magazine in front of him.

Frantic, she looks around. He must have bought her a chai latte, which she drank without even paying attention. Sara, who’s cleaning the steam wand, catches her eye and grins. ‛He’s been there an hour!’ her friend mouths, and Felicity feels all of the blood drain from her face.

When she looks back, Cute Coffee Guy has moved his attention away from the magazine. “Hi,” he says.

Felicity doesn’t really know what to do, so she takes a gulp of the chai latte. “You’re really hot,” she says, and every part of her freezes like a startled cat, ready to run out of the room. “Coffee! I mean, the coffee’s really hot and wow, I am not usually that much of a spaz. Hi.”

Cute Coffee Guy grins like he’s absolutely charmed and not ready to slowly back away in terror. “Sorry to be so forward,” he says, and he stands a little so he can hold his hand out for her to shake it. “I just thought it might be nice if we met officially. I’m Oliver.”

“Felicity…is my name,” Felicity said, blushing as she shakes his hand. “And I guess I should say thank you for the coffee. I totally would have earlier…if I had…noticed…”

“I have to admit, I’m really curious about what’s got you so absorbed. I mean, I was trying to match it with this,” and Oliver holds up the silly children’s magazine, “but I just don’t think it has the same power.”

“Oh. Just, uh, work. I come here because it beats my apartment and I might murder this client otherwise.”

“I was going to offer to buy you another one of those, but you might want to lay off the coffee if that’s a probability.”

“Yeah,” Felicity says, and she draws the word out like a complete dweeb and is confused when that only makes Cute Coffee Guy—Oliver, his name is Oliver—smile harder. “I mean, no, um, thanks, I’m good, and I really do appreciate it. And finding out your name so I don’t have to call you Cute Coffee Guy anymore and—oh, god, please let a sinkhole swallow me now. I should never drink this much coffee, ever.”

Oliver’s phone buzzes and he glances at it, frowning briefly. “Then how about we switch to wine?” he asks.

This isn’t happening. “What?”

“Maybe later? I also own a wine bar, down on Seventh. Guaranteed to be just as good as the Caffeine Queen.”

“You also…oh my god, you’re not just Oliver, you’re Oliver Queen, aren’t you? You own this place.”

“Guilty as charged. I’ve got to go, my sister’s ready for me to pick her up from class. See you at six, maybe? We’ve got a red that will blow your mind.”

“But why?” Felicity asks before she can stop herself.

Oliver actually gives her a grin as he rises to his feet. “Because you’re Cute Glasses Girl,” he says, and she’s fairly sure her jaw is hanging in the breeze as he walks away. In fact, it takes her twenty minutes of just pure shock to realize:

She just got asked out on a date.


	5. What Are You Smoakin' Dude Ranch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Dude Ranch AU_ for [sabra-n](http://sabra-n.tumblr.com)

Oliver spent his first two weeks at the What Are You Smoakin’ Dude Ranch in pretty constant pain.

He’d liked to think that he was in shape before Walter and his mom had cut him off. He’d gone to the gym, he’d run to keep himself pretty physically fit (it made it easier to pick up girls if you were attractive, and he didn’t always have to rely on his wealth that way), he’d even enjoyed hiking and other things. He was young, he was healthy, he should have been fine working in a barn and shoveling horse shit. It wasn’t like it was that hard.

Two weeks later, all he wanted to do was go back in time, track down that cocky young idiot who’d strolled through the front gates with his duffel bag over his shoulder, and beat the ever-loving daylights out of him.

He’d settle for a couple of percocet and a long soak in a hot tub, but he wasn’t going to get that either.

“Oh, hey, Slicker,” Diggle said as the hostler climbed down the stairs into the main level of the barn. “Ready for another day of fun and excitement?”

“If you didn’t control my paycheck, I’d tell just how much I hate you,” Oliver said.

Diggle laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re getting better, Slicker.”

Slicker. At least they hadn’t called him Drama Queen on account of his last name. But it was a mark of just how much of a city boy he was, even if he’d had horse-back riding lessons as a kid and he generally liked horses. Everybody that worked at WAYS was really young, so he didn’t know who’d come up with such a dated reference, but if he had to put money on it, he’d bet on the owner.

And there she was, looking a little sleepy as she pushed open the front door of the barn. She wore her battered stetson, which Arrow had taken a bite out of the week before (Felicity hadn’t even flinched), her WAYS employee shirt tucked into jeans that would be dusty before long. She looked years younger than her actual age, and like nobody else who owned ranches in the area. But she’d inherited young and she had a firm chin. She could take a punch, he’d learned, because it didn’t take long living on the WAYS ranch to realize that the other ranchers in the area wanted Felicity Smoak and her ranch gone.

She wasn’t going anywhere.

He grabbed lead ropes and headed for her.

Her face lit up when she noticed him. “Hey, Oliver.” She was the only one that used his actual name. “Sleep well?”

A bed of nails would be more comfortable than his cot. “Can’t complain,” Oliver lied. He held out her lead rope and she smiled as she took it. “How about you? Get any sleep?”

“Just going over accounts for this place. I learned how to avoid sleeping for days in college.” She readjusted her hat and they headed for the separate stalls. It was probably Oliver’s favorite part of the day, leading the horses out to the paddock so that they could clean out the stalls. He might not enjoy shoveling manure all day, but he couldn’t deny that he’d always had a thing for horses. He hoped he’d be a trail guide before long, but as of right now, the Lance sisters, Shado Fei, and Barry Allen handled most of those duties.

They worked in quiet solidarity for a few minutes, leading the horses out, and then he heard her say, “Hey, Oliver?”

He turned and barely caught the apple Felicity tossed his way. “What’s this? Treating me like one of the horses?” he asked, grinning at it.

She surprised him by giving him a flustered look. “What? Oh, no, not that. It’s just—I saw you sneaking a carrot to Arrow yesterday, you big softie.”

“Oops,” Oliver said, falling back on the same innocent grin that had gotten him out of trouble time and again.

Felicity rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling. “He prefers apples, for the record. But watch your hat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”


	6. Helpless Or Something Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Surprise Parent Trope_

“Oliver, are you near a TV?”

Oliver, about to make a jump to the next rooftop over, paused and drew up to his full height at the sound of Diggle’s voice in his ear. “I’m a bit indisposed,” he said, as there didn’t seem to be any televisions on the roof.

“Still got your phone on you?”

“After Felicity yelled at me for losing the last one, I’m taking this one to my grave.” Oliver paused. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“She’s the reason I’m asking.”

Oliver dug out his phone and loaded the app Felicity had designed. If she were at the computer bay in the Foundry, whatever she wanted him to see would already be ready to go, but Diggle wasn’t as proficient with the technology. So it took a few seconds for video to appear. He squinted at the screen, trying to make heads or tails about why Diggle would be sending him a Starling City Breaking News update…and then Felicity’s picture flashed on the screen, next to Malcolm Merlyn’s.

He went very still. “How long has this been going on?”

“Just broke, as far as I can tell.” Frantic typing sounded in the background. “I don’t know if she knows yet. Her tracker has her at her apartment and she didn’t pick up her phone. I can be there—”

“I’m a couple miles away,” Oliver said. “Meet me there.”

And then he jumped off the roof.

*

Because he was hooded up, Oliver climbed the fire escape with a grappling arrow. He wouldn’t have preferred such an unsubtle approach, but time seemed to be of the essence. He landed on her fire escape and knocked four times on the pane, in the pattern they’d worked out. He couldn’t see her, but that just meant she wasn’t in her bedroom.

There was no answer. After twenty seconds, he pushed the window up and rolled into the apartment. He didn’t call out just in case she had friends over, though he did head for the door.

She pushed it open right before he reached it, nearly hitting him in the nose. “Oh, hey, that _was_ your bike I heard,” she said, her face lighting up with a brief grin. “You’re just in time. I made some kick-ass Pasta con Asparagi, it’s going to blow your—Wait, is there trouble? Arrow trouble? What do you need?”

He really didn’t know how to break this, so he took a deep breath. “Felicity, have you watched the news?”

“No, I just had some music on…”

He followed her out of the bedroom and into her living room, where she picked up the remote from a little basket on the end table and clicked the TV on. “What’s so urgent that it’s on the news and—oh my god, that’s my face. What is my face doing on the…”

She trailed off and went quiet, her eyes wide.

“You should sit down,” Oliver said.

“My face is on the news next to Malcolm Merlyn’s. Oliver, he’s the guy that you…” She turned suddenly and reached out, her fingers trailing down the front of his chest, right where he had stabbed himself to kill his best friend’s father. He was amazed she was even able to pick that scar out when he had so many, but her eyes look huge and glassy behind her lenses.

“Felicity?” he asked slowly.

She dropped her hand and shook her head. “They’re…they’re saying I’m a ‘missing heir.’”

“I know.”

“That I’m Malcolm Merlyn’s daughter.”

“Felicity, you need to sit down.”

But she took a step back instead, and then another, putting her hands over her face. When he moved forward—to do what, he had no idea, really—she held up one of those hands, and it seemed delicate. It was also shaking, but Oliver stayed rooted to the silly little pink rug in front of Felicity’s couch. His fists clenched at his sides. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Not remotely. I…” She trailed off, looking around her apartment in bewilderment like she had no idea how she’d even gotten there. “Is that true? Is the news telling the truth? You were…you knew Malcolm Merlyn. You’d know something, right? You’d know if they’re lying or if—if this is a hoax, or a bad joke.”

Oliver opened his mouth and shut it, feeling helpless. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t even know he was the Dark Archer.”

“Right. Right, yeah, that makes sense, that makes perfect sense. Um, no offense.”

“None taken. Look, you should—”

She dropped her hands, an intense glare taking over her face. “If you tell me to sit down again, I swear I’m not gonna be responsible for what happens next.”

“I was going to say you should call your mother,” Oliver said.

“Oh. Oh. Um. Right. Yeah, yeah, I should…my phone—”

“Here,” Oliver said, grabbing it from its charger in the same basket that held the remote. “I’ll go into the kitchen, let you have a minute.”

She nodded tightly, like she wasn’t sure she could speak, and her fingers shook as she dialed. He hadn’t even made it to the kitchen before he heard her strangled, “Mom? Is it true?”

The sheer, unrelenting pain in her voice was enough to make him indulge himself. He made sure not to dent her refrigerator when he punches it. Even though he was rich enough to pay for the damage, she had developed a policy that she didn’t like Oliver paying for things that she considered hers, and he respected that rule, though he really, really wanted to hit something.

Malcolm Merlyn had found yet another way to screw them all over from the grave, and it would be fine if it was him, but now it was Felicity.

In the living room, Felicity’s voice grew louder. “How could you not tell me? How could you _lie_ about this? You didn’t think it was important to mention that the man who fathered me was a homicidal maniac? You didn’t think I would find that handy to know in case I needed to fill out, I don’t know, a survey or something? God, Mom.”

There was something that smelled delicious on the stove, though he really wasn’t hungry. Carefully, he turned off the heat under it and moved it to a different burner. He had a feeling Felicity wouldn’t be hungry either.

“Yes, I’m pissed,” Felicity said, and she was shouting now. “I had to find out over the news. They’ve got a not-very-flattering company picture of me on the news and it’s all over the place and I had to find out from them and not you, so yes, I am pissed—oh, don’t yell at me about language, you _lied_.”

Oliver’s phone buzzing nearly made him jump as he reached for the bottle of Jim Beam he knew that Felicity kept for egg-nog. He hit Talk. “Yeah, Dig?”

“Oliver, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

Oliver moved over to Felicity’s little kitchen window, which looked over the street, and promptly swore under his breath.

“The doorman’s keeping them out, but there are a lot of them,” Diggle said. “My advice is if you don’t want her on the news in person tonight, the two of you get out of there.”

“This night just keeps getting better and better. They might look for her at my place, and I don’t think the Foundry’s a great spot for her to be.”

“My place it is. I’ll pull around the back.”

“No, we’ve got my bike. We’ll be okay. Distract any of them from coming to the back alley.”

“Got it.”

Oliver moved from the kitchen to the bedroom, grateful that Felicity’s back was turned to him. Her voice had dropped out of its loud setting, which didn’t actually portend good things: some of her most vicious barbs had been delivered at a whisper. But that was a problem to worry about later, now he had to focus on getting them out of there. In her bedroom, he grabbed her toiletries kit from the dresser, her neatly packed make-up bag from the bathroom sink, and the go-bag he’d insisted she pack from under the bed. He tossed the paperback novel on her nightstand into the bag and then headed for the living room.

Felicity had hung up. She stood, staring at the news screen (which was showing b-roll from a charity function she’d attended as Oliver’s date, actually), the phone forgotten in her hand. When she turned to look at him, he felt the confusion and misery plow into him. He opened his mouth.

Before he could talk, though, she blinked at him. “Why do you have my luggage?”

“Reporters downstairs. Dig says we need to leave now if we want to avoid them.”

“I…” They both looked over at the knock on the door.

“Felicity Smoak?”

“Okay,” Felicity said. “The pasta—”

“I shut it off already. Sara can come deal with it later.”

They escaped out of her fire escape and even though he saw her blanch a little at the motorcycle, she didn’t complain as he gave her the helmet. She clung to his back and he revved the bike, heading the opposite direction from the journalists. He was familiar with the route from her place to Diggle’s, and being the on the motorcycle wasn’t great for conversation, so he had plenty of time to sit and wonder. Felicity had said her father abandoned them, and judging by her reaction tonight, she’d had no idea what had really happened. So who had spilled the beans? How had the press discovered her? He was going to call the office and get the legal team working on it right away, to make sure that she was protected from being harassed. And he could probably call Tommy’s old lawyer while he was at it. They’d been arrested so many times together that Mr. Harrow had basically ended up defending Oliver as often as he’d looked after Tommy.

Either way, all of this was a nightmare, and he really, really wanted to hit something.

When he felt Felicity’s torso begin to shake against his, he dithered. It took less than thirty seconds for him to make up his mind; he pulled over into an alley and turned off the bike.

Felicity immediately scrambled off of the bike and yanked off the helmet, wiping her hand across her face. “This isn’t Dig’s.”

“It’s not far. I just thought you might need a minute.”

She nodded, and her face twisted, contorting in a way that told him she was trying not to cry. She apparently lost the battle, though, for her shoulders crumpled forward and she began to shake once more. This time when he stepped forward, she didn’t back up. Instead, she kind of collapsed into his chest and began to sob in earnest, and there was absolutely nothing Oliver could do but hold on.

“What the _hell_?” she asked, her voice thick. “My dad was supposed to be, like, an astronaut or a rocket scientist or a mathematician.”

“When I was ten, I secretly wanted my dad to be an American Gladiator,” Oliver said.

Felicity lifted her head to look at him. “What?”

“It was a TV show. Tommy and I used to…”

The realization seemed to hit both of them at the same time. Felicity seemed to wobble on her feet and her eyes went huge. “Oh, god, Tommy,” she said. “Tommy was my…”

“Half-brother,” Oliver said since she didn’t seem able to.

“I didn’t—I mean, I never really paid attention to him? Like, he was nice and he always gave me free drinks at Verdant, but I didn’t look at him and just _know_ ‘hey dude, you’re my brother.’”

It could hit you like a falling anvil, Oliver had discovered. Those were the worst times, when he was completely fine and then suddenly he was faced with the reminder that his best friend was gone and wouldn’t be back. There wouldn’t be a drunken phone call at 3 a.m. to come pick his sorry ass up outside Verdant. Just…gone. Oliver took a deep breath.

Felicity grimaced. “And now I’ve stuck my foot in it. I’m so sorry, Oliver. You guys were…”

“If he’d known, Tommy would have loved having you as a sister,” Oliver said, keeping his voice even. “He would have teased you so much, though. And you probably would have gotten revenge by putting him on the no-fly list.”

For some reason, this only made Felicity start crying again. “Whoa,” Oliver said. “I was trying to cheer you up. I’m sorry.”

“N-no, it’s—it’s okay. It’s just _weird_ and it just figures and I had a sibling the whole time and—no. Two siblings. Thea. I have a sister. All that time I thought I was an only child, but now I have a sister who doesn’t know I’m her sister, and I have a sister.”

“Nothing’s ever simple,” Oliver said, brushing a stray lock out of her face.

“I have a sister,” Felicity said again. Her face twisted. “No, we have a sister.”

“Let’s…never put it that way again,” Oliver said, grimacing.

The sound of a throat clearing put him on edge, but he turned and Sara was there, her Black Canary jacket zipped up over her gear so that she just looked like a random college student in leather. “Hi,” she said, and her expression told him that Diggle had filled her in.

“Sara.” Felicity stepped back from him, wiping furiously at her face in some kind of attempt to appear presentable.

The other vigilante, however, just stepped up to her and hugged her. “I’m sorry,” was all Sara said. “I’m so sorry.”

He could see the surprise work its way across Felicity’s face—Sara wasn’t normally the type to give hugs—but she hugged Sara back for a moment before stepping back. “So you two are my escort, huh?”

“Actually, just me,” Sara said. “Diggle thinks it might be good for you to keep me around as security for a few days, while we work this out. And Oliver, there’s a robbery on Lexington and Fourth.”

The relief that flooded through him was so intense, it almost embarrassed him. “Thanks,” he said. “You got it from here?”

He’d addressed the question to Sara, but it was Felicity that nodded. “It’s going to be okay,” she said, reaching out and grabbing his hand.

Oliver paused. “Isn’t that my line?”

“It’s still true, either way. Go punch a bad guy, Oliver. You’ll feel better.”

'Thanks' felt like a really stupid thing to say, as did everything else that possibly came to mind. So Oliver settled on a nod. As much as he wanted to do anything he could to help Felicity, he really, really wanted to beat something. His main regret was that he couldn't bring Malcolm Merlyn back from the dead and pummel him a few times. Felicity didn't deserve this. Tommy hadn't deserved it either. And Thea, if she ever found out, wouldn't deserve it either.

But _something_ needed to be said, so he cleared his throat. “That pasta stuff smelled delicious, for the record,” he said rather lamely, and both women blinked at him in puzzlement as he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional Meta about this Story** : 
> 
> Sara actually takes over as Felicity’s bodyguard full time because nobody trusts the Merlyns and Sara knows besides that if they know Malcolm Merlyn has a living, acknowledged daughter, the League might come after her. I think when Oliver comes back from pummeling some poor bank robbers, he finds Felicity on the couch and she’s a lot calmer that this is her life, but she still gives him a long hug and promises him this time she won’t blubber all over him the entire time.
> 
> And Moira would be Felicity’s biggest champion in this universe because a) getting back in Felicity’s good graces is the way to Oliver’s heart and b) she knows what the rest of them don’t, that Malcolm is alive, and she wants to protect Felicity from him the way she wants to protect Thea from him. And they don’t precisely become frenemies because Felicity never fully trusts Moira, but Moira does at some point put her life on the line for Felicity.
> 
> But yes, the Queens all pitching in to spin the narrative, that Felicity is a victim of Malcolm Merlyn the way everybody else is, that she’s part of the 99% and she doesn’t deserve hatred for being the daughter of the man who killed 503 people in the Glades. Felicity discovering that while Oliver has to fight the board at Queen Consolidated, she has to do exactly the same thing at Merlyn Global. Felicity getting angrier and angrier about how unfair all of it is until she starts beating a training dummy in the Foundry one night, screaming out her anger, hitting it harder and harder until her knuckles bleed and looking down at her hands and realizing that she doesn’t want to be that way, she doesn’t want to be the one to put arrows in people, she wants to help people. So she makes the choice to take Merlyn’s money and his company and do good things with it, the same way Oliver’s trying to do with Queen Consolidated, and along the way the two of them connect over that in a way nobody else can really understand.
> 
> And when they find out Malcolm Merlyn’s alive and Thea finds out who she is, it all goes to hell, but they deal with it because that’s what they do.


	7. Tequila Makes Her...You Get the Picture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Drunk Rambling Trope_

“And I told him, I _told_ him that profits were gonna be up this quarter, but did he listen to me? Noooo. Pfft. Just some female who runs the CEO’s desk and still fixes all of the tech glitches at QC, what the hell do I know?”

Oliver licked his wrist, grabbed the bottle and took a swig, his eyebrows lowering slightly when Felicity started to move around weirdly, like she was trying to dance. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyebrows going lower. It looked a little bit like a seizure.

“This sweater’s too hot. Which, I gotta tell you, is a first because we keep this place like an icebox.” Her eye-roll included all of the Foundry in one sweep, which was a little impressive. Oliver just watched in fascination as she finally wormed free of the purple sweater. It hadn’t looked like a prison, but the way Felicity struggled against it, it might as well have been. “So anyway, that’s really not the first time Tim in Accounting’s been douchey, but it’s the first time he’s followed it up with an actual request to take me out. The man drinks Boone’s Farm, what the hell am I going to do with that?”

Oliver decided he probably should lay off the tequila. He was lucky he hadn’t been drinking during that last announcement, as one of Felicity’s computer monitors would have been covered by tequila and spittle right about now. “Yeah, that’s unfortunate,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.

“I mean, he’s cute and all, and he knows it, but he’s not, like, you and Diggle-level cute.”

Oliver wisely covered his mouth before he could start laughing.

Felicity bent over to pry her feet free of her pumps. “Shut up,” she said, pointing one finger at him (well, a little to his left, maybe she needed to lay off the sauce as well). “I am allowed to say that you’re cute and have it not be weird when you have that face, Mr. Queen.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The pumps went flying, joining the sweater in the pile in the corner. Felicity picked up the salt-shaker and dosed the side of her hand again and Oliver specifically did not pay close attention to the way her tongue flicked out as she licked up the salt. She took a long swallow and made the same face she’d been making all night.

“The vigilante lifestyle’s kind of hell on the dating life anyway. I mean, if I’m not staying late at the office, I’m here, and that kind of dedication’s hard to explain to some random nine-to-fiver dude. Which is why Tequila Fridays.” She helped herself to some corn chips and tossed them into her mouth, one by one. It was what she called her ‘drunk skills.’ She didn’t have a very good sense of aim while sober, but for some reason, pouring some liquor in her meant she could catch anything with her mouth: marshmallows, corn chips, jelly beans. She’d demonstrated several times.

Tequila Fridays had kind of become a thing.

“You want?” Felicity said, holding the bottle toward him.

He’d meant to stop, but… “Sure.”

“You know, me having Tequila Fridays, I can understand,” Felicity said, and he finished his gulp quickly before she could go on. “But you, shouldn’t you be out with one of your passel of women? They go for the brooding vigilante thing, you have your pick.”

“I’m not a brooding vigilante,” Oliver said, tilting his head a little.

“Fine. Brooding CEO, then. Either way, you’re like catnip for a certain type. Like…woman-nip. No, catnip works. Queen-nip?”

“Maybe you’ve had enough of this,” Oliver said, putting the cap on the bottle.

Felicity just shrugged and caught another chip. “Fine by me. Everything’s happy and a little float-y. Any more and it’ll go angry and drown-y.”

“I’m going to get us some water,” Oliver said. He wasn’t entirely steady when he rose from where he’d been sitting on the edge of Felicity’s desk, but he kept his feet under him as he crossed to the sink in the corner and filled them up a couple of glasses of water.

He turned around to find Felicity unbuttoning her shirt, and panic bolted through him. “What are you doing?”

“It’s hot in here.” She said it like it was completely obvious. “And I think I’m getting allergic to my clothes because it’s so hot.”

“Keep your shirt on.”

“You and Diggle parade around here half-naked all the time. It’s just a shirt, Ollie—ver. Oliver, yeah, I don’t think I can call you Ollie, sorry.”

“I really don’t mind,” Oliver said, and his blood pressure shot to unhealthy levels when she went back to unbuttoning the really pretty pink blouse she was wearing. “Felicity, keep your shirt on.”

“Why is it that only the douchebags in Accounting hit on me, anyway?” Felicity undid another button, a little line puckering between her eyebrows as she focused all of her attention on the task. “I mean, that last actual nice guy that was decent enough to be polite while he was hitting on me was Barry before you went all growly vigilante on him.”

She tugged the shirt out of her waistband and kept unbuttoning things, and Oliver was so distracted by her hands that it took him a minute to catch what she had just said.

“Hey, I don’t growl,” he said.

She seemed to think that was the funniest thing ever, for she fell against the desk, nearly upsetting the water glass he’d just set down. She giggled until there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oliver, I love you, I really do, but you totally growl. You’re like a green bear in leather and a hood. Oh, wait, you’re offended by that. No, no, it’s okay that you’re a bear, it really is. You make it work. It’s like your thing.”

“Thanks?” Oliver wasn’t sure what he could possibly say other than that. At least, the not-so-traitorous part of his brain pointed out, she’d stopped disrobing. He’d seen her in her work-out tank tops, which left her arms bare and her shoulders exposed, but trying to fight off Diggle on the training mat and pulling off clothing while tipsy on tequila and talkative were two very different things.

He tried not to think about Felicity that way. It wasn’t right. He respected her, even if she had just equated him to a teddy bear.

When he turned back to ask her if he should order some food from Big Belly Burger or upstairs, something greasy to help soak up the alcohol, she was in the process of peeling out of her shirt.

His mouth went completely dry. “Felicity—what are you—”

She turned and the panic finally subsided enough that he could see she wore a tank top under the shirt. “Hmm?” she asked. She balled the shirt up and tossed it into the corner with the pumps and the sweater. She massaged the side of her neck as she rolled her head around, sighing in relief. “Ah, that feels so much better. I gotta tell you, no wonder you and Diggle wander around shirtless all the time. This feels so nice.”

“Just do me a favor and keep the tank-top on.”

“Well, yeah,” Felicity said, and she snorted. “Like I’m gonna go full shirtless in front of you? Pppfft. Yeah, right. You have a full six-pack. Diggle has a six-pack and his _arms_ oh my god. Roy has a six-pack. Even Sara has a six-pack. I have a no-pack. This shirt is staying _on_.”

“Good,” Oliver said before he realized what that sounded like. He winced. “I mean—”

“Though if you’re going to be a prude, you might want to look away because the hose is coming off, Oliver. It’s constricting and hot.”

“I’m going to go get us some food,” Oliver said, deciding that the best offense was to retreat the hell out of there before she compared him to a stuffed animal again. Also, he wasn’t entirely sure his system was going to settle anytime soon, not after the traitorous part of him had exploded with a riot of mental images of Felicity calmly peeling off even more clothing, like that skirt, and the tank top and— “Yeah,” he said. “Food. Now.”

“Cheese fries, please,” Felicity called after him as he all but ran for the stairs. “And a really big diet soda!”

“As you wish,” Oliver said. His last thought as he headed up into Verdant was that he had absolutely no idea why she had just made that strangled noise, and maybe it was better if he didn’t know.

It took his heart rate nearly an hour to slow down.

Oh, boy.

Was he ever in trouble.


	8. A+ Body, C- Behavior

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The College AU_ for [olicityslowburn](http://olicityslowburn.tumblr.com)

“Hey, Teach.”

Felicity looks up and there he is, filling her doorway once again. She has her usual reactions at lightning speed—god his eyes and that body and the boy must spend all of his hours at the gym because it’s unfair that a business major should be that cut—but mostly these days all she feels is annoyance. “Oh, good,” she says. “You got my note.”

He holds up his midterm with her little blue post-it note still attached. “No smiley face?”

“Mr. Queen—”

“You can call me Oliver, you know.” He takes a seat across the desk from her and he probably thinks his smile is pure charm, and damn him, it is, but she really can’t let that get past her defenses. He’s the rich boy elite at SCU and she’s just a grad student who had to pay her way herself, and she really needs this job.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she says.

“I get to call you Felicity. It feels unfair.”

“Be that as it may, this needs to stop.”

He affects an air of innocence, which she knows is a complete crock because Oliver Queen’s type is never innocent. “What needs to stop?”

“This!” Felicity points at the bouquet of star lilies at the corner of her desk. Thankfully she’d managed to convince Professor Steele that they were from her mother because her of her birthday, but after the chocolates last week and the singing telegram the week before, Steele’s starting to get suspicious and frankly, he’s right to. The rules of TAs at SCU are very, very strict and fraternization of this kind could lose her a job she barely talked her way into in the first place. “All of this. The cute little notes on your homework—”

“You thought they were cute?”

“The flowers, the candy, all of it. It needs to stop. It’s inappropriate.”

“I don’t see how. This is the only class where I’m actually inspired to turn homework in.”

Felicity groans. “How you’re not on academic probation is a case even Nancy Drew couldn’t solve.”

“Who’s that?” Oliver grins when she gives him the stink-eye. “Is she hot?”

“Oliver—”

“Hey, you do know my name.” Oliver looks delighted.

“Focus,” Felicity tells him.

“You know, I see you smile when you get the notes,” Oliver says. “And I like seeing you smile. What’s so wrong about that?”

Whether or not she thinks he’s clever and far too funny for his own good is not the point. “What’s wrong about that is that it’s going to lose me my job,” she says. “And I really need this job, okay? I don’t have my parents footing my bills. It’s inappropriate—you’re my student, I’m your TA, and yes, I know, I’m actually younger than you, shut up, that’s not the point.”

She’s expecting another charming or noncommittal comment, but she doesn’t expect him to frown. “You’re in danger of losing your job?” he says, sitting up and looking concerned.

“Professor Steele’s one of the best in the country, but he doesn’t take up with this kind of thing. Now, I know you’ve been having a laugh—”

“I haven’t been.”

Felicity has to blink at that one a couple of times because: “What?”

And then she has the oddly absurd pleasure of seeing Oliver Queen in his giant MCU Starhawks hoodie shuffling his feet. “I am _really_ bad at flirting if you think I’ve been kidding this whole time,” he says, his brow wrinkling. He takes a deep breath. “I like you, Felicity. I actually think you’re pretty great. I’ve liked you since that first day of class when you told that joke about Hippo-crates.”

“Hippocrates,” Felicity says, and she has to fight back the urge to look behind her and make sure there’s not some other Felicity in the room. There’s not. He’s talking to her. Oh.

Eep.

“Oh,” is all she can say as her rather over-talkative brain has suddenly decided it will be no help whatsoever.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize SCU had a policy about undergrads not dating grad students,” Oliver says. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“What? Oh, it’s not that. The policy’s that we can’t see each other because I’m TAing your lab class, not because I’m a grad student.”

For a second, Oliver stares at her and the air absolutely seems to thrum with _something_ between them. Her breathing’s a little shallow and that’s her heart pounding against her ribcage. It’s really a crime against nature how attractive Oliver Queen is, she thinks not for the first time.

“You know, there’s only six weeks left this semester,” he says slowly, like he’s feeling out the words. “And once you’re done being my TA, then it’s appropriate?”

“Totally appropriate. Welcome, even.”

“Well, then, I’ll mark my calendar. Six weeks, you, me, a bottle of that red you were talking about in class the other day?”

“You were paying attention?” Felicity asks rather than blurting out _crap yes, I will be there_.

“When you’re talking? Always.”

Dammit, she’s blushing. “You’re on, Mr. Queen. If you’re willing to wait that long. I know how you handsome types have all the ladies throwing themselves at you and…oh, god, why can I never stop talking when I want to stop?”

“Is it really appropriate for you to be calling me handsome, Instructor Smoak?” Oliver asks, though his eyes are twinkling. “I mean, that’s not professional student-teacher behavior.”

Felicity just puts her head in her hands and laughs helplessly. “Get out, go on,” she says. “Six weeks.”

“See ya in six weeks, Teach.”

And he strolls away grinning.


	9. Olicity in SPPPPAAACCCEEEEE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Space AU_ for [ladybuglloyd](http://ladybuglloyd.tumblr.com).

“Engineer, we need that engine online _now_!”

“Yes,” Felicity says under her breath as she wriggles from the cooling chamber and into the navigation system, which is bigger than her old dorm room at M2IT, “because I’m just goofing off and taking my time for the _fun of it_ , Oliver. Sheesh.”

It takes her some more wiggling and climbing and a couple of good old whacks with an old-fashion monkey wrench, but the engine hums to life around her. Felicity lets out a ripe curse and scrambles for safety in the engineering chamber, sliding for home under the contamination chamber door before it can fully close on her. She’s built fail-safes into the system, of course, but if she gets stuck in the engine again, the next round of drinks at Belly’s are on her. She slaps the control panel and shouts, “We’re go for take-off, Cap. And for the record, _you’re welcome_ ” and then races for the nearest jump-seat.

She makes it just in time, which is good because Tommy Merlyn is both a) a prick and b) the best pilot in this galaxy and he doesn’t believe in calm take-offs. Or really, anything calm, if his relationship with Navigator L. Lance is anything to go by. Felicity buckles in and then grits her teeth as the g-force shoots her back into the wall a little bit.

“Doing okay?” John Diggle, _Verdant_ ’s resident security officer, asks Felicity on a private channel.

“It’d be nice if you and the captain decided to inform me ahead of time when people are going to shoot at us at three in the morning so I can have the engine ready to go,” Felicity tells him, not bothering to hide her grouchiness. The crew knows she’s not a morning person. That’s why really only Sara—who’s losing her mind to space-radiation anyway—and Oliver are the only ones brave enough to wake her if it’s not an emergency.

“We’ll send out a memo next time,” Diggle says, and he sounds like he’s laughing at her a little bit. “Engine all cleared?”

“Yep. Just tell Tommy to keep it on the straight and narrow because that chewing gum I used to keep the G-fram in line is kind of old and doesn’t have much stickiness left.”

“I’m worried you’re not kidding.”

“That’s because I’m not.”

“Is this the cool kids channel?” Sara asks as she pops in on their frequency. “Can I join? What’s happening?”

“Felicity’s failing to reassure me that we’re not going to go down in a flaming wreck,” Diggle says.

“Oh, we’re definitely going down in a flaming wreck.”

“That’s what I like about you, Felicity. You’re such an optimist,” Sara says.

She sounds like she’s having a good day for once, and even though she’s all alone and listening to the voices on her comm, Felicity smiles. “It’ll be a pretty flaming wreck?” she offers.

“That’s the spirit. As soon as Tommy’s done being an asshole about flying this thing because Ollie woke him up, come to the mess. I’ll put on some coffee.”

It takes Tommy a little while to fly like a normal person, so Felicity finally unstraps her jump gear and, listening to the confident hum of the engine thrumming through the floorboards, makes her way across the _Verdant_ to the tiny mess, where they tend to gather most nights. Space can be a lonely place, but she likes her crew: Captain Queen, Navigator Lance, Pilot Merlyn, and the rest of them that don’t fit into the military structure Oliver tries to maintain. They’re an unlikely bunch: Diggle’s an ex-soldier, but he turned his back on the Federation Army, Sara’s an assassin they’ll never fully understand but Laurel loves her and she’s the closest thing Felicity has to a best friend and protector. Roy’s a puppy—an angry one—but he’s learning. Thea…she’s still finding herself, as Felicity’s mother would have put it, but she’s handy to have during negotiations because she just doesn’t take no for an answer.

Felicity’s path takes her right by the cockpit, and she’s surprised when she hears footsteps fall in line with her and there’s Oliver in his uniform. It’s similar to the one she knew he wore during the Kled Conflict, when he was one of thousands brainwashed into serving in the Navy. But unlike the regulation navy blue, his tunic is a dark green-gray and he wears an ancient pair of boots that are nonetheless polished to a high shine. He keeps his gamma rifle at his right shoulder, as ever.

He makes her oil-stained over-tunic and her trousers look completely sloppy, though Sara insists the oil-stained look is a good one for Felicity. There’s not much point in owning many fancy clothes when you’re an engineer.

“Morning, Cap,” she says.

He inclines his head toward her, overly formal. “Engineer Smoak.”

“I see we’re getting a super-early start to our day. With gamma bullets and everything.”

“It happens. Engines all right?”

“Can’t you hear them?” They sound like music to her, the type of music that makes sense and lifts her up at the same time. “Purring like a…thing that purrs, I guess. A cat. That’s it. Why can I never remember that?”

“I owe you an apology,” Oliver says and Felicity stops thinking about cats to look at him in surprise. Apologizing isn’t something many ship captains do. “For being short with you about the engines. I’m attempting to work on my temper and it was unfair of me to snap at you.”

“We can blame Tommy, if you want,” Felicity says. “The rest of us are planning to do that.”

“He’ll enjoy that, for sure.” The sarcasm drips, and she likes it because it adds some of the humanity she knows he lost during the Kled Conflict. “Where are you headed?”

“The mess. Sara’s got coffee. You coming?”

He looks a little surprised that she’s offering, and she remembers that in formal military settings, officers and crew dine separately. Well, things just don’t work that way on the _Verdant_. “Sure,” he says, and she can tell he’s about two seconds from offering her his arm, but he doesn’t.

It almost makes her smile. It’s progress.


	10. The Mystery of the Naked Guy in Her Kitchen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Neighbors AU_

She just wants an omelet. It’s not too much to ask for, or maybe it is because Felicity wanders into her apartment three mornings after she moves in, and there’s a mostly-naked dude in her kitchen.

Felicity does the smart thing: she screams and runs back into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Why the hell did she get a place without a lock on the bedroom door? Oh, god, she’s going to die because she got a place without a lock on the bedroom door and this is why she needs to think things through better. She throws all of her weight against the door even though she’s not that big and mostly-naked dude is kind of gargantuan. “Whoever the hell you are, I’m calling my incredibly built boyfriend who’s totally not made up—and the cops! I’m calling the cops!”

“Whoa, no, don’t do that!” Mostly-naked dude sounds kind of panicked himself. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Oh, so you’re robbing me? Take whatever you want and leave, I swear I won’t do anything. Though I don’t really have anything valuable and the Commodore won’t go for much on eBay, I already tried that.”

“The what? I’m not here to rob you. What happened to Mrs. Harrow?”

Wait, Felicity thinks, that’s weird. How does her mostly-naked robber know about the woman she’s subletting this place from? “You know Mrs. Harrow?”

“I live next door. I’m not trying to rob you. We share a balcony.”

Felicity, weight still braced against the door, scrunches her nose as she thinks this over. Mrs. Harrow had mentioned a very kind young man who sometimes helped her with the groceries and heavy lifting and any maintenance the super couldn’t fix—though he wasn’t all that much of a handyman, admittedly—and Felicity had looked forward to running into him in the hallway sometime (and dreading it because she was well aware that she could babble anybody’s ear off), but that did not compute to having him show up in her apartment wearing only a pair of green boxer shorts. “Why should I believe you?” she calls through the door.

“My name’s Oliver.”

“So all people named Oliver are automatically telling the truth?”

“All people named Oliver standing in this room are.”

“Cute. Real cute.” Felicity takes a deep breath, but doesn’t move away from the door. “Why are you in here?”

“Mrs. H, um, she lets me hide?”

“What are you hiding from?”

She hears something between a sigh and a laugh. “A really ill-advised one-night-stand.”

“And you’re naked because?”

“I’m wearing boxers. And I may have, um...”

“Oh my god,” Felicity says. “You sneaked out on the poor girl—wait, guy? Girl? I mean, it’s your choice, I won’t judge, except I’m totally judging because you sneaked out on somebody!”

“Girl,” Oliver says. “And you wouldn’t understand how clingy this woman is. But if I sneak out and leave a note that I’ve gone to work, they generally tend to leave. I mean, sometimes they take stuff, but it’s easier this way, trust me.”

“And Mrs. Harrow just...lets you hang out?”

“She keeps snacks on hand and I watch cartoons.”

“In your boxers?”

There’s a pause from the other side of the door. “Not normally. But she’s usually at work at this point. Look, who are you? Where’s Mrs. H?”

“I’m Felicity. Mrs. H, as you call her, is letting me sublet this place while she takes a sabbatical through Rwanda. She’s been planning it for weeks. How did you not know?”

“I kind of just got off a plane. I picked up Cindy—or Mindy, possibly Wendy—at the airport bar. Listen, that’s not important. I’m sorry for breaking into your place. I had no idea.”

Felicity waits for him to continue, to tell her he was going now, that it was a mistake but it wouldn’t happen again. Instead, though, the silence stretches on and on until she realizes what is happening. She groans. “You’re totally giving me puppy dog eyes through the door right now, aren’t you?” she asks. 

“Cindy is really, _really_ clingy. I won’t be a nuisance, I promise.”

Felicity finally sighs and pushes open the door. Oliver is standing by Mrs. H’s giant fern, apparently trying to look as non-threatening as possible, but it’s kind of obvious that he spends a lot of time in the gym in the building’s basement. And now that he’s potentially not a robber/rapist/murderer, she can actually see that he’s kind of cute. If you like that strong-jawed, muscle-y man type. But he’s also standing there in his boxers and because of it, he looks a little ridiculous.

“Hi,” he says, giving her a tentative smile. “Bad time to say welcome to the building?”

Felicity sighs again. “Well, since you’re here and apparently not going to leave, want an omelet?”


	11. Hold My Hand Because Here We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Winter Olympics AU_ for [Crazy4Orcas](http://crazy4orcas.tumblr.com)

**2007** :

The first time she actually saw Oliver Queen in person—and not more than a glimpse of him at a regional skating competition where she wasn’t even in the same category and he was probably listening to Laurel Lance explain something—Felicity skated right into the boards.

She probably could have saved it and stayed on her feet. It didn’t even hurt, but she still let out a squeak and careened into a particularly scuffed area of the boards. She flopped to the ice and sighed. Maybe if she stayed there, Coach would just let her give up. She didn’t understand why she needed a new partner after Jeff was a jerk and faked a broken ankle to get away from her. Couldn’t she just quit and work on computers instead?

A shower of ice hit her in the side and then there was Clint Barton, leaning over her and grinning. “What’d you fall for?” he asked.

“The ice looked really super inviting, duh,” Felicity said.

Clint scratched the back of his head. “But you don’t even jump,” he said.

His partner elbowed him out of the way, muttering under her breath in Russian. Ever since moving to Starling City, Felicity couldn’t deny she’d learned to curse in new and inventive ways. She accepted the hand up from Natasha Romanoff with a thanks. “How pink am I right now?”

Natasha wrinkled her nose. “Less pink if you were not wearing that color, I think,” she said in that measured way she had. Where Clint Barton did nothing but smirk at life, it took a long time to tease a smile out of Natasha. “He did not laugh.”

“What?”

“Queen. He saw you wipe out and he didn’t laugh.” Natasha tilted an eyebrow. “I like him better than Jeff already.”

“Yeah, but he still saw me wipe out first thing,” Felicity said and Natasha shrugged in that very-Russian way she had. With a sigh, the blonde left the pair behind and skated across the ice to where Coach was standing by the hockey team bench. Oliver Queen stood by him, looking kind of sulky now that Felicity was close enough to see his expression. He wore a green hoodie that matched his blade guards.

Coach gave her a questioning look. “Injure anything?”

“My pride? I mean, not that that wasn’t injured to start because I saw Jeff last week and that jerk’s ankle is fine. I only kicked him a _little_ , you know, there’s no reason for him to be such a big baby because he thinks girls are gross.”

Though Coach attempted to look stern, she could tell that he was doing his best not to laugh. She didn’t mind this reaction to her babbling. At least it was honest. “Felicity, I’d like you to meet Oliver. Oliver, this is my brightest student, Felicity.”

“He’s just saying that because of the hair,” Felicity said before she could stop herself.

Oliver’s eyes cut up toward her hair and then back down and to her surprise, he actually broke out into a smile. He shook her hand. “Did he deserve it?”

“What?”

“Jeff. You kicked him?”

“Only a little and—”

“Felicity,” Coach said warningly.

“He did,” Felicity said, glaring at her coach. “You didn’t like him either.”

“Be that as it may,” Coach said with a sigh, sounding very British, “do refrain from kicking Oliver?”

“I’ll do my best,” Felicity said, and she realized that Oliver wasn’t actually looking at her but at something behind her on the ice. She glanced over and didn’t blame him. Apparently Clint and Natasha were working on their jumps again. “We have to share the ice with them,” she told Oliver, “’cos Coach Fury and Coach Steele are cousins and all. But they’re pretty nice, all told.”

As they watched, Natasha attempted a triple and almost plowed into Clint, who yelped and hopped out of the way, nearly falling flat on his ass. Natasha landed more on less on the correct edge of her blade, wobbled, and then immediately spun in place and sprinted after Clint, who hooted with laughter as he escaped.

“They’re also insane,” Felicity said.

“They are at that,” Coach said. “Well, why don’t we get to it?” He held out his hand for Oliver’s blade guards.

Oliver stepped out onto the ice and peeled off the hoodie, revealing a long-sleeved gray shirt and giving Felicity a peek at some really impressive abs and the scar that must have come from Laurel Lance’s skate gashing him during the competition the year before. Felicity immediately wanted to wince at her jokes about kicking her partner; everybody had seen what had gone down at Junior Nationals between then-sixteen-year-old Oliver Queen and his partner, and nobody really wanted to talk about it.

Felicity had to figure she’d be lucky if she could hold off for twenty minutes before she mentioned it.

“Why don’t you warm up, do a couple laps? Then we’ll try some basic steps and see how you look together?” Coach said. “Nothing too strenuous today.”

“He’s being nice,” Felicity as they skated away, keeping up with each other but not touching. Oliver, of course, looked like he’d been born to wear skates all the time. His form was so easy and unaffected.

“How so?”

“He’s letting you get used to my babbling, really. Not too early to bail, I promise, because it’s only going to get worse.”

“Actually, I like it,” Oliver said. “Laurel—my last partner—at the end, she wasn’t talking to me much, so it’s a refreshing change.”

“You say that _now_ ,” Felicity said, giving the boards she’d crashed into earlier a sour look.

Oliver laughed again—it sounded kind of rusty, like he wasn’t used to laughing at all—and held out his hand. “Let’s go faster,” was all he said, and it wasn’t the exertion making Felicity’s heart speed up as she took his hand.

* * *

**2008** :

“No, Clint,” Natasha said, as she pushed on the back of her partner’s head, flicking him easily, “I’m not going to play bow hunter again.”

Clint swiveled in his seat on the middle bench. “Felicity?”

“Pass. This calculus homework is kicking my butt.”

“I’m game,” Oliver said, and Felicity looked up in surprise.

Their competition, for once, was in the same arena on the same weekend, which meant that they could all carpool together, so Coach had rented a giant van. The coaches sat up in the front, and as far as Felicity could tell, they’d spent the entire drive complaining about the government, while the assistant coaches took the first bench, leaving the back two benches for the skaters (and some equipment). Oliver had spent most of the drive bent over his cell phone, feet propped up on back of Clint’s seat, while Natasha had read some Russian novel and Felicity had worked on her homework. But now Oliver actually looked interested as Clint passed over the little handheld game.

The pairs skater caught Felicity’s surprised look, for he grinned. “You’re missing out,” Clint said as Oliver bent over the game.

“On bow hunter?”

“It’s quality team entertainment.”

“It’s shooting deer,” Felicity said.

Clint grinned. “Hey, I bet my team can beat—”

“No,” Felicity and Natasha said at the same time.

Oliver covered a snicker with a cough, though when Felicity glanced at him, he winked. He gave her the same wink six hours later, when they stood at center ice, out of breath and smiling.

* * *

**2009** :

“Oh, my god, what is _that_?”

Oliver looked down and grimaced as he ran his hands down the front of his orange, yellow, and red striped vest. “Clearly,” he said, his voice dry, “my best costume yet.”

Felicity collapsed against the cinderblock wall, dashing hopelessly at the tears that leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “Where,” she tried to say, but the giggles overtook her again.

Oliver waited with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where did the rest of your barbershop quartet go, again?”

Oliver grimaced at her. “I’m going to go tell Walter we’re better off with the dustbowl worker outfit,” he said, walking off in his skates.

“Sorry!” Felicity called after him.

“No, you’re not!” was the reply.

* * *

**2010** :

“And with tonight’s results, you eked your way into a place at Vancouver—”

“Is ‘eked’ really the word we want to use here?” Felicity asked before she could really stop herself. She felt Oliver’s suppressed laugh because they were kind of squashed into the interview booth by the NBC reporter, who looked toothy and a little manic. “I mean, it’s just not very flattering.”

“What Felicity is trying to say is that we’re very excited about Vancouver,” Oliver said, and she could hear the undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

“Where you’ll be joining your training partners, pairs skaters Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton,” the reporter said, and Felicity wondered if it was an optical illusion or if her teeth were actually getting bigger. Also, did she think they didn’t know Clint and Natasha’s names?

“Clint and I are thinking about wearing matching costumes,” Oliver said. “But the ladies keep turning us down.”

“Well, maybe if it was something besides camouflage,” Felicity said, and Oliver elbowed her in the side, making her laugh. “They like to fancy themselves archery masters when they’re not on the ice.”

“And Clint likes purple, so maybe it wouldn’t work.”

“Hey, I like purple,” Felicity said, and this time it was her turn to elbow him. As one, they turned angelic smiles on the reporter.

Either she was used to irreverent ice skaters or she simply had no soul, for the reporter sort of chuckled. “It’s been noted by several big names among the ice skating community that Oliver’s brought a seriousness to your skating that was lacking before, Felicity, and that you in turn make him seem a little more whimsical. Care to comment on that?”

Felicity turned to give Oliver the _tag, you’re it_ look they’d developed when the media had started taking an interest in them. He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Mostly we just have fun with it. It’s nice having somebody at the end of the day that’s right next to you, laughing at the same silly falls right there with you. It helps both of us keep perspective so we can leave it all on the ice. I mean, Felicity, she’s my partner. It’s been that way since day one.”

“Mm-hmm. And what do you say to the rumors that you two have been secretly dating since October?”

Oliver’s _tag, you’re it_ expression was just a tiny bit malicious. Felicity coughed a few times, pounding on her own sternum. “There—there are rumors about that?” she asked. “Really? I mean, we’re partners, but not like, _partners_ partners. I mean, sure, we spend an inordinate amount of time every day sweating and getting into position and holding each other’s hands and—oh, god, that sounds really, really dirty. Don’t put that in there. Um, what I meant to say—”

“What she meant to say,” Oliver said, “is that no, we’re not dating, secretly or otherwise.”

“But hey, if people think we are, must mean we’re good at our jobs, right?” Felicity asked weakly. “Convincing people we fall in love every time we skate a routine.”

“Right,” the reporter said, though she gave Felicity a funny look as they moved on to other topics.

“I really, really have to get better at answering that question,” Felicity told Oliver later when they headed to the concession stand for milkshakes.

“‘Getting into position?’” Oliver asked as he pulled out his wallet to pay for their drinks. “Really?”

“It’s coming up on three years now. You should know my brain is trying to sabotage the rest of me as revenge for not being at MIT right now.”

“You’ll get there,” Oliver said.

Felicity sighed and took a sip of her strawberry milkshake when Oliver handed it over. “Yeah,” was all she said. Oliver’s grin had her peering at him suspiciously. “What’s that look for?”

“You’re so cute when you mope,” he said, and wisely ducked before Felicity could punch him.

* * *

**2011** :

“You really should work on your bedside manner,” Oliver said.

Felicity pushed the textbook away from her and blinked at him a few times. Starling City University wasn’t quite up to the levels of the Massachusetts Institution of Technology, but she liked it. Oliver usually only really attended if she was in the same class and made him show up, but Felicity enjoyed class almost as much as she loved being out in the rink, listening to the scrape of her blades on the ice as she flew. Since Oliver was currently laid up with his ankle wrapped and elevated, and Felicity was on light duty because they didn’t want her to get into any bad habits without her partner around, she had more time than ever to devote to her homework.

Unfortunately, she also had a demanding partner.

“What do you need now?” she asked. He wasn’t grimacing, so he wasn’t in any pain, but he did look bored.

“Something to do?”

“Aren’t you watching basketball?”

“It’s over. SCU lost.”

“Want some cocoa?”

“Not really.”

“A sandwich?”

“Eh.”

“Oliver, you have to give me something here.” Felicity pushed her hands back through her hair.

“I’m bored.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Felicity gave up the ghost on her database theory homework and closed the textbook. She stepped over the ottoman and grabbed the front of Oliver’s hoodie. She might have looked petite, but she was strong enough to lift Oliver—and had, during their _1001 Nights_ routine the year before—so he popped up right onto his good foot.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to visit Tommy so I can foist you on him.”

“Is this your way of saying I’m being annoying? I stuck by you when you had that rotator cuff thing last year.”

“You and Clint invaded my dorm room and played Duck Hunt until two a.m. every day, and as I recall, you only left because Natasha chased you out.”

“Same thing.”

“Not remotely.” Felicity handed him his crutches, which he made a face at, and they headed down the sidewalk together. Coming up as they were in the ice dancing community—they’d placed fifth in Vancouver, not bad for one of the youngest teams there—they’d had time to make friends outside of their training partners, and Tommy Merlyn had struck it off with Oliver almost right away. Felicity had no idea why; things had to be awkward when they’d both partnered up with Laurel, though Tommy had yet to get gashed in the stomach by her (and he’d also, from what Felicity could tell, avoided sleeping with Laurel’s sister, which was probably not unrelated). Felicity liked her partner. Hell, she loved him because he’d seen her through her blue eye-shadow period and he hadn’t judged at all. But she was glad he’d made friends with Tommy and with John Diggle, SCU’s star hockey player. It gave her time to do her homework in peace.

They walked together quietly, heading for Tommy’s apartment. “I had an appointment this morning,” Oliver finally said.

Felicity abruptly forgot all of her annoyance. “What’d Doc say?”

Oliver shrugged a little. “It’s potentially not good,” he said.

Her stomach plummeted. “How not good are we talking?”

“Maybe it’s nothing. They just think my ankle should be more healed than it is, that’s all. It could be nothing.”

Or it could be everything. Felicity felt a cold pit begin to form in her abdomen. She knew they weren’t a rarity in the ice dancing world, as they were each on their second partner, but they were slowly creeping into the ‘professionally married’ category, and she was happy with that. She couldn’t imagine working with a partner who wasn’t Oliver, one who didn’t sigh when she babbled, one who understood why she sometimes stared at the parents cheering extra-loud for the little girls and boys at the amateur competitions. He never judged her for any of it, not even that he was the stronger skater of the two of them. Over the years, they’d developed wells of patience and their own routine, and she couldn’t imagine starting over with somebody new.

Felicity took a deep breath as the realization hit her that she didn’t _want_ to even try.

“So…what?” she asked. “Does this mean you’re buying us tickets to Fiji so we can become beach bums?”

“Had enough of the ice, then?” Oliver scowled.

“No, I’m just preparing myself for if you’re going to give up just because some saw-bones tells you you’re not doing something right.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I am not doing that.”

“First sign of trouble and you just throw in the towel.” Felicity clicked her tongue in disapproval.

Oliver gave her a grouchy look and swung forward on his crutches. “I know exactly what you’re doing,” he said.

“Masterfully refraining from telling you that you’re a big baby?”

“Is it masterful if you literally just called me a big baby?”

“Of course.” Felicity finally gave up and laughed when he swung the tip of his crutch at her calf. He was actually frighteningly mobile on those things. “I should’ve realized it sooner that you were sulking. Your ankle’s going to heal up fine, and you’ll be back on the ice in no time. Way I see it, you don’t have a choice.”

“I don’t?”

“Nope.” Felicity elongated the word into several syllables. “I mean, do you really want to face Clint’s scorn for the rest of your life when he finally figures out you got yourself into this by screwing up a twizzle?”

Oliver ran his hand down his face. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“I’m right all the time.”

Eight weeks later, Felicity stepped out on the ice, wearing her SCU jacket over her costume and immediately took off skating. When Oliver caught up twenty seconds later, he switched so he was skating backward, facing her, and gave her a wink. “Guess we’ll have to put off beach bumming it for another year,” he said, and Felicity’s heart betrayed her by jumping.

* * *

**2012** :

“No, I promise, we’re really not dating. Oh, hey, look, I answered that question without awkward positions or mentioning sweating and—dammit.”

* * *

**2013** :

“Oliver. Oliver! Oliverrrrr, we’re going to be late. We’re supposed to be at the rink in eight minutes and you know it takes a full twelve minutes to get there and—”

Felicity jumped back when the door opened. And then her eyes proceeded to bulge out of her head because it wasn’t Oliver on the other side of the door but Isabel Rochev. “Wha-oh,” she said, very intelligently.

Isabel gave her a very obvious once-over, taking in the yoga pants and the jacket and probably her lack of make-up and her ‘we don’t have a competition until later’ glasses. And then she smirked and Felicity’s blood began to quietly boil. “Hey, Miss Smoak,” she said.

“Miss Rochev. What a surprise.” She was going to kill Oliver. This was why he’d cried off watching tape last night? “To see you here, that is. Is, um, is Oliver around or did I somehow get the wrong room because if I did, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, he’s in there. I got him warmed up for you.” With a final, knowing leer, Isabel slipped past Felicity and sauntered down the hall, wearing nothing but a bed sheet.

Felicity watched her go in confusion. “Where does she even keep her room key in that get-up?”

“Felicity?”

She swung about as Oliver hurried out in the middle of pulling on his jacket, a Clif Bar clenched in his teeth. “I’m late,” he said around the wrapper, “and I’m sorry. Alarm clock didn’t go off. Think if we run, we can make it?”

“Sure you don’t want to chase after Isabel Rochev instead?” Felicity asked, pulling his hotel room door shut behind him.

He gave her a pained look. “Felicity…”

“You know what? Never mind. What happens in Russia stays in Russia. Even if it doesn’t make any sense.”

* * *

**2013 — 2** :

Felicity flipped over Oliver’s arm and found the ice with her blade, breathing in time to the music. In her mind, she heard the familiar count, always at the back of her mind when they skated, and a thousand other thoughts. Shoulders straight, Killian grip, release, double three. She kept up through math, while she knew Oliver skated by instinct. It had taken them a couple of seasons to fully understand each other.

Now it was just like breathing.

“Coach wants us,” Oliver said, and Felicity swiveled to a stop before she could complete her second chassé. They were both a little out of breath as they skated over to the area where Walter and Amanda waited.

“Not bad for the second day of doing the lift on the ice, huh?” Felicity asked as she stopped shy of the boards. “We are just _that_ good.”

She held her hand up for a fist-bump, and Oliver gave her that tiny smile as they knocked knuckles.

“Don’t get cocky, Miss Smoak,” Coach said, “though your form is improving.”

“High praise from the boss-man,” Oliver said.

Coach sighed at both of them. “If I may continue?”

Felicity and Oliver put on the twin looks of innocence that had Amanda Waller snorting behind her coffee.

Five minutes later, they skated away, Felicity spinning around and trying to figure out why Coach was calling her shoulders saggy. Had she been slacking off? Oliver skated along beside her with his hands in his pockets, adjusting whenever she deliberately skated into his path. Then he smirked, and Felicity practically heard Coach groan. She immediately dashed after him, grabbing onto his hand with both of hers, and he shot her across the ice. They skated forward as fast as they could, grabbing hands and using momentum to sling-shot the other forward, all the way down the rink.

“You’re both fired!” Coach called as they raced past him.

Oliver spun her around, twirling her in place. “Can’t fire us,” Felicity called back when Oliver caught her and draped her backward dramatically, her head mere inches from the ice, “we’re world champions.”

Coach rolled his eyes and waved them off. Oliver and Felicity grinned as he pulled her to her feet—and Felicity nearly blinked to see Oliver’s expression close off suddenly.

“What’s—”

“The Flush is here,” he said.

Felicity whirled in place and grinned. “They call him the Flash, and you know that,” she told Oliver, and she skated over to the side, where Barry Allen was leaning against the boards with his speed skates slung over his neck. She stood up on her picks to give him a hug over the top of the boards. “Hi! You didn’t mention you were dropping by. This is a great surprise.”

His smile always made her heart flutter a little. “Yeah, we’ve got a match at SCU and I thought I’d see how it’s going. Is all of that part of your new routine?”

“Nah, Maid Marian plays a little harder to get than that. Not that, oh god, I’m not saying I’m easy. We were just goofing off and…”

“Hey, Oliver,” Barry said when Felicity felt herself going bright red.

“Barry.” Oliver skated up.

“Anyway,” Felicity said, determined to cool down a little bit. “We’re doing Robin Hood and Maid Marian this year, with the Kevin Costner soundtrack because even though his accent’s lame, the music works in a way you wouldn’t expect, you know? It’s neat.”

“That’s awesome!” Barry said, grinning.

“Felicity, I think we’ve probably messed around enough,” Oliver said.

“I can’t take five minutes to talk to my friend?”

“We really need to work on this lift.”

Why the hell was he being so pushy about this? Felicity rolled her eyes. “Which we can do in five minutes,” she said. “Barry, you have to tell me how your match went.”

“I…we can hang out after practice, maybe?” Barry asked, looking a little pale. Felicity had never really noticed how much Oliver towered over him before, especially in skates.

Her, on the other hand, he’d been towering over since she was sixteen, so she wasn’t even on the brink of intimidated. She turned and pinned Oliver with a glare. “Stop that. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but we can take five minutes so I can talk to Barry. You can wait.”

“I can come out on the ice so you don’t cool down too much,” Barry said. Then he glanced at Oliver, his chin rising slightly. “We could race.”

Oliver snorted.

“What the hell is wrong with both of you?” Felicity asked, putting her hands on her hips. “You know what? Never mind. I need to get back to practice. Barry, are you sticking around in Starling City overnight?”

“Yeah, they put us in one of the unused dorms.”

“Meet me for coffee? We get off practice at four.”

“But we need to—” Oliver started to say.

“See you then,” Barry said, and he gave her a little wave as he headed out, his bright red uniform top bunched at his waist.

“Do I even want to know what that was?” Felicity asked Oliver as they skated toward center ice.

He raised his eyebrows at her, his chin tilting up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Figures. Let’s work on that lift.”

* * *

**2013 — 3** :

“Oh, there you all of you are.” Felicity dropped her gym bag on the floor by the door to the lounge. “I just heard from Barry.”

“The Flush?” Oliver asked. He was mostly buried in the fridge.

“The Flash, and Iris _finally_ agreed to go out with him. I’m so happy for him.”

Oliver’s head popped up. “Who’s Iris?”

“Speed skater,” Natasha said from the table. “Prettier than Clint.”

“Hey! That’s just blatantly—true,” Clint said, frowning. He pulled his purple hood back up and settled down into his chair once again, socked feet resting on the back of Natasha’s chair. The redhead kept peeling her apple with a terrifying knife. “Wait, why do we care about some speed skaters, again?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Felicity said.

“I thought we were your only friends,” Clint said.

Felicity and Oliver snorted. Even Natasha didn’t bother to correct him.

“Well, that’s good for Barry,” Oliver said.

Felicity squinted at him. “You’re smiling. Why’re you smiling?”

“Just a good day, I guess.” He set a bottle of water and a banana in front of her and sat down with his bowl of cereal. When the others (even Clint, who opened his eyes) gave him puzzled looks, he moved his shoulder. “I’m not allowed to have good days?”

“You haven’t had many lately,” Felicity said.

Natasha nudged a manila folder across the table. “The company that does our websites sent these over. They want your approval.”

“Please no pictures of my crotch, please no pictures of my crotch,” Felicity said. She flipped the folder open and moved it so Oliver could look as well, paging through the pictures. “Goofy expression, Oliver’s eyes look crossed, this one’s okay, that one makes it look like Oliver has his hand up my skirt…”

“That one would probably be good for publicity,” Clint said, his eyes closed once more. Natasha pinched his foot. “Ow!”

“Oh, hey, I haven’t seen this one before,” Felicity said, ignoring him. She picked up the photo to get a better look. It had been taken at Worlds because that was her Cosette outfit, the blue bodice with the white sequins (that Oliver had complained about for six weeks) sewed into it, and Oliver wore the whole vest and ascot and everything. The photographer must have snapped the shot right after they’d finished their free skate, as she’d been so happy that she’d basically jumped on Oliver. In the picture, they were face to face, and he had her by the middle with her arms thrown back in the air as they both grinned at each other.

Natasha craned her neck to get a look at the picture. “And you wonder why the world thinks you’re dating,” she said.

“You should mess with everyone at Sochi,” Clint said, yawning. “If we win that group medal, I dare you two to kiss each other on the ice.”

“What kind of a dare is that?” Felicity asked.

“I’m bored and I think it would be funny?”

“Such a romantic slob,” Natasha said.

Clint shrugged. He still hadn’t opened his eyes. “I’m retiring after Sochi. I stopped caring about anything a long time ago. Ow. Except Natasha, of course. God, why the pinching? I need that foot to land on.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Weren’t you guys thinking of retiring, too? Or was that something I hallucinated because of the painkillers?”

Oliver and Felicity finally looked at each other. “We were thinking about it. Felicity’s back—my ankle—”

“Isn’t it great to feel fifty when we’re not even half that?” Natasha asked, rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t go with that picture, by the way.”

Felicity finally remembered that she was holding the (okay, it looked incredibly intimate) picture of Oliver lifting her high into the air. Quickly, she set it back down. “Why not?”

Natasha rose to put her bowl in the sink. “It’s already on your Wikipedia page.”

* * *

**2014** :

Out of breath, shaking with adrenaline and fatigue, Felicity grasped for Oliver’s hand and they took their bows, throwing their arms wide. They presented to the judges, waved at the crowd and then, and only then, did Felicity finally jump on Oliver.

He was laughing as he caught her, hoisting her up so she wouldn’t fall. “We did good?” he asked, just as out of breath as she was.

“We did great.” Felicity tossed her arms up and ignored the increase in camera flashes all round them, just letting herself _feel_ the freedom of having finished. Oliver twirled them around once, which made her laugh, and dropped her back on the ice as the junior skaters raced around, collecting the flowers and stuffed animals tossed onto the ice. They waved to the crowd once more and skated for the kiss and cry, holding hands once again. Oliver switched so that he had an arm draped over her shoulder.

“You know,” Felicity said as they skated, “you were wearing green the first time I met you.”

Oliver plucked at his Robin Hood jerkin-shirt. “I look good in green.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Hey, about the day we met,” Oliver said, and she hadn’t ever seen that look on his face before, not in the seven years they’d known each other, a mix of nerves and intensity that had nothing to do with _putting it all on the ice_. She stopped about ten feet short of the edge of the ice in confusion. “Do you remember what I said to you?”

What was he asking about this for right now? They had to get to the booth and find out their scores. “That you liked my babbling?”

“Well, that’s still true, but I meant…let’s go faster.” And before she could even ask “What?” he scooped her up and kissed her.

Immediately, Felicity heard the entire stadium go, “Ooh!” but she didn’t care. She wrapped hear arms around Oliver’s neck and kissed him back, nearly breaking the kiss to giggle because she could feel his heartbeat actually trying to jump out of his skin. It was exactly like she’d fantasized, only better, because Oliver kissed like he was incredibly determined, and they both smelled like sweat and their terrible costumes, and she didn’t give a damn if they won the team medal or not.

He broke the kiss and they grinned at each other like absolute idiots.

“I like faster,” Felicity said before they were shuffled to the kiss and cry for real, where she nearly missed their scores being read.

From behind them, Felicity heard a distinctive cackle. “We’re going to need to change their Wikipedia picture again, Clint.”


	12. All Our Dreams Turned to Plastic Limbs and Disembodied Heads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Potential Supervillain AU_ for [shonnia21](http://shonnia21.tumblr.com)

There are parts of the Foundry Oliver avoids.

He’s not sure why, or what started it. He owns the building, so technically he should be free to wander wherever, but Felicity built Diggle his own little ‘get away from annoying vigilantes and computer geeks’ room—his words, not theirs—and Sara even has her own corner where her stuff gathers over time, broken bo staffs and things like that. Oliver doesn’t really mind a lack of his own space. He’s got the salmon ladder and he likes to be on hand whenever Felicity’s working at the computers. Sometimes it’s easier to be right there when news breaks, sometimes he just enjoys whatever music Felicity puts on, and occasionally it’s just fun to be around because she’s just goofing off on the computer and her laughter makes his work-out sessions less painful.

So it’s not unusual that it takes him nearly a year to actually give the storage closet in the corner more than a passing glance. What _is_ unusual is what he finds inside.

“Felicity?” he asks because he’s not really sure how to put _why are there five hundred badly made Disney princess dolls on neatly labeled shelves in my secret vigilante hide-out closet_ into words.

“Yeah, Oliver? I don’t have any results on—oh.” Felicity pops up over the top of her monitors and goes pale.

He picks up a doll from the shelf. It’s Ariel, he thinks. It’s hard to tell because the doll’s face is some gruesome, horribly painted mask that’s probably going to give him nightmares. “Explain.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d never look in there. Look, it’s not what you think.”

“That you have some kind of weird Disney doll fetish?”

“Not…exactly.” She approaches him slowly, fingers twisted together so that her hands are clasped in front of her. Her wince speaks volumes. “My friend has a stalker.”

This is possibly her biggest _non-sequitur_ ever. “Beg pardon?”

“My friend Tracy. This guy we knew in college, Jake, he started leaving her these dolls in sophomore year after they went to see a showing of _Beauty and the Beast_. Just, like, on her doorstep, and then he kept leaving notes and sending her emails and texts all the time, just telling her that she’s a real live Disney princess.” Felicity takes a deep breath. “And he wasn’t outright threatening her, so the police said there wasn’t anything they could really do about it, but it freaked her out. They told her maybe she shouldn’t have gone on a date with him in the first place, did you know that? What a bunch of a-holes. Ugh. So I started, you know, helping.”

The doll in his hand now takes on an entirely new dimension of gruesome. “By stealing the dolls?”

“Not in the way you’d think. He gets them off of eBay, and he only likes this one designer. So I designed an algorithm that snipes them before he can buy any of them, and now he can’t send them to Tracy.” Felicity keeps twisting her fingers together, her knuckles going whiter, and he can hear her voice start to shake.

He puts a hand on her arm. “Where are you getting the money?”

“Look, it’s better for our friendship if you know as little about this as…” She trails off when he raises an eyebrow. “I did some hacking and used a broken code from a bank I’m not going to name to start funneling money into accounts in Jake’s name and have been steadily building up an FBI case against him? I mean, it’s not _nice_ , but he’s going to seriously hurt somebody someday. He needs help.”

Just when he thinks she can’t amaze him more. “Oh.”

“I know, I know, we’ve talked about this and how it’s kind of villain-y and I need to stop doing that, but I just want my friend safe.”

Oliver puts the doll back. “Want me to put an arrow in him?”

“Gosh, you’re sweet for offering, but I think—”

“We’ll do this one your way,” Oliver says. He wipes his hand off on his gym shorts, though. The dolls creep him out. Speaking of which: “Why are you storing them here?”

“In case I need to plant evidence. I figured, this place was, like, so unknown the police have no idea it’s here.”

Oliver leans in and looks at the shelves. There are boxes and boxes of these dolls, all of the bins neatly labeled with dates, times, and what he would guess are seller names. There’s a pile of dolls in the corner that don’t fit in any of the boxes. When he looks back, he sees that Felicity is outright biting her bottom lip, nerves written plain on every feature. “You know,” he says, breaking out into a smile, “you’re incredibly terrifying sometimes.”

She lets out her breath in a whoosh. “Uh, for the record, does the secret room full of creepy Disney dolls make me more or less terrifying? I can’t tell.”

“No offense, but more.”

“I thought that.” But she smiles and straightens her shoulders.

“Just a question, though.”

The nerves return. “Yes?” she asks, fiddling with her glasses.

“Why are some of them on the floor?”

“Oh. That. Sara sometimes uses them.”

“To plan battle tactics?”

Felicity gives him an odd look. “What? No. We have tea parties,” she says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and she heads back to the computer before Oliver can fully process the thought of the Black Canary and Felicity Smoak playing with dolls.


	13. Birds of Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The Pirates AU_ for [FelicityRemarkableSmoak](http://felicityremarkablesmoak.tumblr.com)

Felicity Smoak is never going to make it at sea.

“Perhaps, Miss Smoak, you should have selected your future avocation with greater caution.” First Mate Lance sets a mug of water at Felicity’s elbow. “Or at least with sympathy toward your tender innards.”

“I’ve no innards left,” Felicity says. The water doesn’t look appetizing at all. Nothing, she is entirely certain, will look appetizing ever again. “I’ve tossed them into the sea, just as I’ll do with that water you’ve so kindly fetched me.”

Sara Lance’s grin is quick and unexpected. Though the haze of motion sickness and reliving all of her recent meals, Felicity has had time to get the measure of her new companions. Where Captain Queen is, First Mate Lance isn’t far away, and they both have such serious countenances that their smiles are always a surprise—and a welcome sight—to behold. “Drink it anyway,” she says, nudging the mug toward Felicity.

Felicity would rather not. “Perhaps if I don’t, the motion sickness will kill me and ease me from my misery all that much quicker.”

“And leave us without a navigator. Did you or did you not claim that your mind was the sharpest this side of the West Indies?”

“It was.” Felicity pushes to her feet. She’s traded her dresses for the same rough-spun trousers and tunic that the men wear, and her coat is actually one of Sara’s, for her own coats are covered in sick and in solid need of a washing. Luckily, she and the First Mate are of a height. “However, three days of nothing but a rolling ship and a rolling belly have killed any wit I once had and now I am an empty husk of a person, both in constitution and brain. I see you laugh, but I can’t deny it, I’m a useless sailor.”

“You’ll find your sea legs yet.” Sara picks up the mug and holds it out. “Drink.”

“You won’t rest until I have, will you?” Felicity sighs. Outside her tiny cabin, a luxury she affords only because she is the navigation officer, she can hear the bustle of the men. The ship’s carpenter and doctor, Mr. Diggle, can be heard talking to himself, so she figures he’s probably reading the same medical text that he came and read to her earlier when she was feeling poorly. Sara fills the doorway, mug held out and a resolute expression on her face.

Felicity takes the mug and sips, grimacing as it makes her stomach roil. She sips again, and a third time.

“Good,” Sara says. She holds out what seems like a piece of cloth, no bigger than Felicity’s thumb. “Now put this in your mouth and chew on it for a bit. It’ll calm your stomach.”

“What is it?”

“Soothing,” is all Sara will say, and Felicity understands that the woman isn’t leaving until Felicity has obeyed her orders.

It’s not actually cloth, but it certainly is chewy. Felicity thinks she tastes peppermint and other flavors she can’t identify—and then magically, her stomach stops rumbling. She looks down at it in alarm. “What did you just give me?”

“It’s an old remedy. It’ll settle you enough to get some food in you, which is why I brought you these.” Sara produces a couple of biscuits from her satchel and waits with her arms crossed as Felicity finishes them off. “Feeling better?”

“Much,” Felicity says because it’s the truth. For the first time in three days, it doesn’t feel like the ceiling and the walls are going to switch places. “My thanks.”

“We’ll make a sailor out of you.” Sara slaps her on the shoulder like she’s one of the crew. “Come above-decks. Captain thinks we’re lost. We could use a navigator.”

* * *

It’s amazing how quickly Felicity Smoak picks up Arabic.

Sara knew the navigator was smart when they picked her up in Nassau; the woman hadn’t stopped talking for a full twenty minutes and most of those words were numbers that Sara hadn’t understood. Oliver hadn’t either, he’d confessed later on over pints of ale with Mr. Diggle, who served as both the doctor for _Verdant Vengeance_ and as Oliver’s confidant and conscience all in one. But she’d seemed smart and she had a strong chin that she’d raised against the world, so they should hire her on for their next journey smuggling rum into England, and that was that.

Eight months later, Sara has a mighty wish to travel backwards along time’s roads and change all of their minds. If they hadn’t hired Felicity Smoak, she wouldn’t be in this situation. She wouldn’t be a prisoner, like Sara. Even if she is smart and has essentially learned to speak Arabic and communicate easily with a crew that is mostly men who are wary of women with yellow hair.

“You are unhappy,” Captain al Ghul says during supper in the officer’s quarters. Because she and Sara are alone, Nyssa reaches across the table to cup Sara’s cheek with her hand. “I have made you unhappy.”

“No,” Sara lies. “I am content.”

“I traveled the sea looking for you.”

She knows she shouldn’t say anything. She should bite her tongue. “I was not lost.”

Nyssa’s dark eyes flash. “I swore to find you. You were lost. You still are lost, and nothing I do can make you smile at me like you once did. I even let you keep your plaything.”

“Miss Smoak is not a child’s toy, to be dragged along behind me on a string. You should have left her with ou—with her crew. That is where she belongs.”

“Mr. Szared says that she has charmed the crew. They give her the name of—”

“I know what they call her. But she does not belong here.” Just like, Sara thinks but she does not say, because she is well-aware of the knife that sits at Nyssa’s waist, a knife given to her by the dreaded Commodore Ra’s al Ghul, I do not belong here.

Nyssa dabs at the corner of her own mouth with a napkin, ever dainty for a woman Sara once saw murder three naval officers in cold blood. “I can’t very well turn the ship around and return her to your precious Captain Queen, Altayr Al Asfar.”

“You may not have a choice,” Sara says, and they finish their meal in tense silence.

She finds Felicity above, tucked away in an area out of the way of most of the crew. She still wears Sara’s old jacket, but her boots have changed, and her skin has browned from sun. Confidence sits on her like a second coat, straightening her shoulders and making her seem older than the very young woman that Sara took under her wing all those months ago. She has a small journal open over her knee that she is no doubt using to calculate the ship’s path. Mr. Szared, the navigational officer on the _Nanda Parbat_ , has taken to asking her advice on many of the maps.

“How was your meal with the captain?” Felicity asks. “Have we a chance she will let us go at the next port?”

Sara shakes her head.

Felicity’s face falls. Neither one of them has brought up Oliver or any of their other close friends aboard the _Verdant_ , but Sara has seen the way Felicity’s lip trembles at night when they sleep with their hammocks side by side in the crew quarters. “So we are bound to this ship, then?”

“I am. You are not.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nyssa has no hold on you. The next time we near port, you will escape. You are a strong swimmer—”

“No,” Felicity says, shaking her head. “No, no, no—not without—”

“I will be fine,” Sara says.

“I came with you to keep you company. I will not abandon you.” Felicity gives her a wavering smile. “Oliver will find us.”

Sara rocks back on her heels and crosses her arms over her chest. “So it’s Oliver and not Captain Queen?”

“He’s not here to hear it, he can very well not protest. And if you want to inform him the next time we see him, very well.”

Sara’s smile falters a little. It’s been three months since they’ve seen Oliver, since Sara and Felicity were taken at sword-point by Nyssa’s men. Felicity, she knows, holds out hope that they will be rescued, but Sara lost hope a long time ago.

“It may be some time,” she starts to say, but they both look up when there’s a raucous chatter of Arabic from the crow’s nest.

Felicity shoots to her feet. “That’s—they’ve spotted a ship!” And without speaking, they race across the decks, climbing into the rigging to get a better view. Sara peers hard through the gloom, wishing for a far-seeing glass. Felicity’s eyes are much better than hers, though, for the navigator grabs onto her arm and whispers, “The sails are green! Sara, the sails—it’s the _Verdant_! They’ve found us at last!”

Sara looks at the men gathering around them, their swords out and their eyes on Felicity, the woman they call their small bird. Calmly, she puts her hand on her knife. She hopes she makes it through this alive, even though she knows in her heart it’s not likely.

They can’t have Felicity, though. This small bird does not belong to them.

* * *

The captain finds her after the battle, when the _Nanda Parbat_ is long off the horizon, just as burnt and bloody as the _Verdant_ feels now, and Felicity looks up into his face and wonders when the man last slept. It could be the blood loss—he took a nasty blade to the side, a blade that was meant for Sara—but the stubble he always keeps trimmed is a full beard and there are purple rings around his eyes. He also looks gaunt, and she wonders if supplies on the ship are so depleted that even the captain is skipping meals.

But he’s upright and smiling, even with the sling snowy-white against his tanned skin. “Miss Smoak,” he says.

“Captain.” She rises to her feet so fast that she hits her elbow against her bunk and pain sings through her arm. She lets out a vicious oath in Arabic.

Oliver takes a step back. “I beg your pardon—”

“No, it’s my clumsiness, pay it no mind.” She only shakes out her arm a little. Great mercies, it stings. “Is there aught I can do for you, Captain?”

“Ah, no, not as such. I just—I simply wanted to welcome you back aboard. We’ve been sorely lacking without you. Your cheerful talk—it has a way of livening the place up.” Oliver looks downright uncomfortable and overly large standing in her tiny cabin. He has a bruise on his chin and Felicity is reminded once more of the moment in the middle of the battle that he emerged through the smoke, sword glinting on the torchlight and madness in his eyes as he faced down the man holding a knife at her neck.

It makes her swallow hard, remembering it.

“I appreciate you trying to pretty it up,” she says because the cabin is getting warmer, “but what you mean to say, Captain, is that I talk too much and there has been nothing to fill the silence.”

“What I mean to say,” Oliver says, “is that without you, the silence is unbearable.”

Felicity feels her tongue growing thick in her mouth. She’s positive that if she tries to speak, she will do nothing but stammer, and with the way her heart is suddenly pounding, she won’t even hear it.

“I am much heartened you are safe, you and our esteemed First Mate both,” Oliver says before she can say anything.

“It is entirely because of you,” Felicity says. “Had you stuck to the code—”

“It was never a choice.” Oliver smiles and sketches her a proper bow, as though they’re in a dance hall and not aboard his ship. “I am glad to see you well, Miss Smoak. Until the morrow.”

And he leaves before Felicity can even wish him a good evening. Her knees are suddenly quivering, so she sits down (and bangs her arm again, though this time she hardly feels it) and remains there with her heartbeat still racing.

When she looks up again, it’s not Oliver darkening her doorway, but Sara. “Greetings,” the First Mate says, sounding hoarse. “It appears that you’ve got our good captain quite enamored.”

“I have done no such thing,” Felicity says, but her cheeks feel hot.

Sara raises an eyebrow and winces. She took quite a blow to the head fighting Captain al Ghul, Felicity knows, and that will probably give Felicity the shakes for a couple of days, knowing that her friend was almost killed in the battle. But Sara is for the most part safe and whole, and they are once again where they belong, and everything has worked out for the better.

“You should sit down before you injure yourself further,” Felicity says.

“No, no, I am not staying. I just wanted to make sure you are well.”

“I am the one that came through the battle with nary a scratch.”

“The battle that our captain led to retrieve _you_ ,” Sara says, and her grin is positively devilish.

“And you as well.”

“Perhaps, but I am a mere afterthought. You know, I do believe we require a celebration on deck tomorrow. With music, perchance? We’ll sure get the captain to take a turn with you. It will be most invigorating—”

“Ahem,” Felicity says, glaring at her friend. “The only thing required here is sleep. So go on with you, get some rest.”

“Oh, very well, spoil my fun.” Sara’s face turns sober for a minute. “I am glad we made it out of there alive, the both of us. I—I did not expect to, so… Good night, Felicity.”

“Good night,” Felicity says. When the door closes behind Sara, she shuts her eyes and breathes in. She listens to the _Verdant_ ’s sails and boards creak in the breeze and revels in the feeling of being glad to be home, until the word catches up with her. A home is something she’s never had before, but now, feeling the boards dip and sway beneath her feet while her heart still thumps from the intensity of Oliver Queen’s eyes, she knows she is where she belongs.

She is home.


	14. A Little Birdie Told Me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Future With Kids AU for [shipperfey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperfey).

Her problem isn’t that she’s incapable. She’s the Black Canary. She’s done things far more terrifying than this.

It’s just that there’s only one of her and there are three of them.

She remembers getting the call at four a.m.—her fault for not letting them know she’d hopped a couple of continents away from where she’d told them she was going, really—the first time Oliver’s voice has said, “I have news” without bearing a heavy mantle of tragedy in the rise and fall of the words. Just like she vividly remembers hopping on a six a.m. flight back to Starling City and running up to Felicity, who practically crushed her in a hug with the promise that “No, I’m not going to break, I swear!” There had been lots of twirling and “Okay, but no, I might actually throw up on you, though, so let’s not do that.” And then there are other memories that pile up on: texts of ultrasound pictures sent to phone numbers that _should be unlisted, Felicity, why do I even_ try _to be off the grid when you’re in my life?_ , settling down for a while to be on hand, baby-proofing a mansion, outracing a bomb and dragging Oliver along so he wouldn’t miss the birth of his firstborn, outracing an AK-47 and dragging Diggle along so he wouldn’t miss the birth of Oliver’s second-born, outracing a melting ray and being dragged along by Laurel so neither of them would miss the birth of the third child.

And two years later, she tries to look apologetic as three small faces stare up at her. It’s not at all effective. They’re far too street-smart for that.

“You _promised_ it was only gonna be two weeks.” Six-year-old Jonah Queen has a face that was built for devastation. Right now it’s doubly effective, as he’s pouting with his arms crossed over his chest. Since he’s the leader of the gang, his sisters mimic his stance perfectly. Granted, Haley likely has no idea why she’s joined a standoff against Sara. She just wants to do what Jonah’s doing and it’s been a couple of months since she’s seen Sara, so some stranger danger is bound to happen. Estelle’s the one Sara knows she needs to watch for. “But it’s been _months_.”

“Sorry, buddy,” Sara says. She crouches so that he doesn’t have to look up at her. “Sometimes it’s out of my control. But I missed you guys every minute I was gone.”

“Really?”

“Yup. And I brought back souvenirs.”

Jonah squints at her, the first crack in the dam. “Did you go somewhere cool?”

Sara thinks of the long days in the burning sun, her throat scorched from the lack of water, the hallucinations starting again and the insidious thoughts that creep in between the survival instincts, the ones that whisper, _this is it, this is finally your stop, Sara Lance._

She smiles. “Actually, it was pretty hot. But I understand why you’re mad at me, and I’m sorry I missed your play-offs. Your dad called and told me all about it. He said you were really good.”

Jonah scuffs his socked foot against the floor of the foyer. “It was okay,” he says, though he’s blushing a little. “We made you a sign and sent you a picture. Did you get it?”

Sara doesn’t tell him how absurd it is to be standing among the world’s top ranked assassins, about to face her death, and receive a picture of Oliver and Jonah Queen in matching Starling City Angels jerseys, holding a homemade sign that says ‘WE MISS YOU AUNT SARA’ and a trophy. “Yup. Do I get to see the trophy in person?”

And just like that, he breaks. “I’ll go get it now!”

While he races off, Sara turns to the other two. Haley first, she decides. Luckily, that’s easy: she reaches into her bag and pulls out the little doll she picked up at the marketplace on her way to the airport. Haley’s face lights up. Most of what she says as she runs forward is babbling except for “Sara!”

“Oh, so you _do_ remember me, you stinker,” Sara says, and Haley shrieks with laughter as Sara snatches her up and pretends to munch on her neck. Usually she would toss the girl around, which doesn’t even faze Felicity anymore, but this time she just sets her back on her feet, where she plops down and promptly pokes her new doll in the eye.

Estelle still has her arms crossed, but without her big brother and Haley to back her up, Sara can see her resolve crumbling. Sara stays crouched. “Hey, Birdie,” she says. 

Estelle drops her arms, little fists flexing. Her eyes move to Sara’s shoulder and the sling. She wouldn’t even be wearing it, normally, but Sin took one look at her when she got off the plane and started doing the _stare_ and it’s easier just to wear the damned sling than it is to disappoint Sin. “Does it hurt?”

“A little, but it’ll be good as new in a couple of days.”

Estelle’s forehead crinkles as the five-year-old gives the matter serious thought. “Will it hurt if I give you a hug?”

“Nope, that’s what I’ve got two arms for,” Sara says. Of course it hurts when Estelle clings to her—the entire right side of her body has been on fire for days, it feels like—but she doesn’t flinch. Instead she laughs and ruffles her niece’s hair. “Look at you. You got so big while I was gone. You’re, what, forty now?”

Estelle giggles. “Five! I’m five.”

“Nope, feels like forty to me. Want to see what I brought you? And then I heard a rumor that some Queenlets want my special pancakes for dinner.”

“Wait, we’re having _pancakes_?” Jonah’s eyes go wide as he slides into the foyer, the T-ball trophy clutched in his fist. He strikes a rock-star pose, arm held high. “Yes!”

It takes time to corral all of them into the kitchen so she can make dinner because there are more presents to be distributed. Jonah parades around in the ridiculous bright blue embroidered slippers she got him, chattering about his new teacher and the fact that he’s in _first_ grade now. He can talk just as fast as his mother, and even better, he doesn’t care if anybody’s listening or not, so Sara keeps half an ear on the conversation with him and focuses on flipping pancakes one-handed and maneuvering around Estelle, who clings to her side, tiny fingers threaded through Sara’s belt-loop. Haley plays a game where she runs and fetches every toy she owns for Sara to inspect. She piles them up with Jonah so they can play what they call “Bugs and Source Code,” which Sara thinks is probably the Felicity Smoak-approved version of cops and robbers.

As a cop’s daughter, it makes her grin. Her dad never let her and Laurel play cops and robbers, either. “Not raising a couple of cops,” he’d always muttered under his breath.

In the end, he’d gotten his wish.

After dinner, which is delightful chaos, she races all of them for the door for a walk around the property. It turns into a game of tag where Sara’s permanently “it” and whichever kid she catches wrestles to get away with the other two running around and shrieking. Their boundless energy is a constant reminder that she’s over thirty and that she’s put her body through hell and it’s beginning to feel like it, but she doesn’t care. She’ll just put on coffee later. Felicity always keeps the good stuff on hand.

Because they’ve been good and only argued a little (okay, a lot, but she’s not going to tell on them), she lets Jonah and Estelle watch a movie in their parents’ bedroom while she gets Haley ready for bed. 

“If my enemies could see me now,” she tells the toddler when she tucks her into the nursery, “I’m pretty sure the Black Canary would stop being the most feared woman in the world. Just so you know.” 

Haley grins and babbles something at her.

“This is your fault,” Sara says, making a face that has the little girl giggling. She gives her a kiss on the forehead and, with a promise that Felicity and Oliver will be back soon, she backs out of the room before it can occur to Haley she doesn’t actually want to be sleeping.

In the bedroom, a full-blown fight has broken out, so Sara gets to spend twenty minutes playing mediator. Two hours later, they’re down for the count, Jonah with his slippered foot sticking out from under the covers of his bunk bed and Estelle curled up in blankets on the couch, where Sara has let her stay after she’d sneaked downstairs twice. Sara sits in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, contemplating the medicine cabinet upstairs because her shoulder is killing her.

When she hears the front door open, she reaches for the knife hidden under the cabinet. But she recognizes the click of heels against the foyer tile, so her hand drops back to the coffee mug. She hears Felicity peek in on the living room and a pause, and the heel clicks continue until her friend is standing in the doorway, grinning at her.

“Shut up,” Sara says.

“The Black Canary,” Felicity says, grinning harder. “Felled by three Queens.”

“They’re Smoaks, too, which is actually worse than the Queen half.” Sara stands to give her friend a one-armed hug. “You look good. I like the hair.”

“Why, thank you.” Absolutely unbothered that her hair looks like she just got rumpled up nicely in the backseat of a car, Felicity pats it and moves to the cabinet, grabbing a pill bottle. “Any problems?”

“Nope. They’re all sleeping.” 

“There’s a miracle. Oliver got a call, so he’ll be inside in a minute. I do have to say, I am so grateful to you for babysitting. I didn’t even know you were back in town.” Felicity sets two pills in front of Sara with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

“Got off the plane this afternoon.”

“You got off an intercontinental flight and still volunteered to watch my hellions?”

“They’re great kids. Plus, I told them two weeks.” She grimaces. “I had some apologizing to do.”

“Oh, no, did they give you a hard time? I told them not to. I’m sorry about that.” Felicity pours herself a mug of coffee, finally kicking off her heels. She takes the stool next to Sara’s, sinking down with a sigh that makes Sara feel better about feeling old. 

“It’s okay. Makes me feel loved.”

“Still. I’ll talk to them. I’m guessing that’s Birdie’s handiwork.”

Sara looks down at the bright pink Band-Aids on the front of her sling. “I had a boo-boo,” she says. “She wanted to make me feel better.”

“What a sweetie,” Felicity says. “But the pills will work better than that.”

“Yes, Mom,” Sara says, and Felicity laughs.

Sara swallows the pills and washes them down with coffee. It strikes Sara, as it does sometimes, how strange it is to have a child named after her. Felicity and Oliver had argued about names for all three of their children, which had been a fun tennis match to watch. Oliver hadn’t wanted any names with a connection to either of their families, and Sara hadn’t blamed him, but Felicity had insisted on at least naming their eldest after him. They’d compromised on Jonah, as it was close to Oliver’s middle name, but not exact. 

Felicity had pushed for Estelle to carry a family name as well, but she’d lost that fight. Estelle, however, had made up her own mind. She’d been a fussy baby, colicky and distempered, and Felicity had been trying to balance Jonah, barely older than a year himself, Estelle, work, and everything else in their lives. Sara had come over in her gear to pick up something and Felicity had greeted her at the door with an armful of howling infant. “Hold this,” she’d said, shoving Estelle at Sara. “I’m going to go hide in the corner and go mad now. Please, take her for a moment. I need—I need a minute, okay? I am seriously losing it here.”

Estelle had taken one look at Sara’s masked face and a miracle had occurred: her sobs had died to hiccups. And as far as they could tell, it wasn’t the mask. It was Sara. The minute somebody handed Estelle to Sara, the baby quieted. Oliver, looking as sleep-deprived and harried as his wife, had started calling them “Sara and her little birdie.” And now there’s a picture of the Black Canary holding infant Estelle in the Foundry. 

Sara has to figure they’re having a difficult time explaining the nickname to outsiders, but Estelle won’t answer to anything else.

“Any trouble going on that I need to know about?” Sara asks now, finishing her coffee.

“You’ve been back in town less than twelve hours. Trouble can wait. I saw Birdie’s necklace, so I’m guessing you got them something on your trip.”

“Necklace for Birdie, doll for Hales—I checked it over, all safe materials—and Jonah’s still rocking his new slippers. I got them a little big, so he’ll grow into them. And here.” Sara leans over and grabs her bag, pushing it toward Felicity. “For you. It’s the same pattern as Laurel’s, but different colors in case you two accidentally coordinate outfits.”

“Ooh!” Felicity digs in eagerly, practically cooing at the pashmina she pulls out of the bag. “Oh my god, it’s so soft. Thank you! But you don’t have to bring us souvenirs, you know. We’re always just happy to get you back. That’s what’s important.”

“I have duties as Aunt Sara. Which, right now, involve giving in before you even start and crashing in your guest room because I am still about twelve time zones ahead of everybody else and I know you gave me heavy-duty stuff.”

“You know us too well,” Felicity says, wrapping her new pashmina around herself as she laughs. “G’night, Sara. I’ll try to keep Birdie from waking you too early.”

“You’re the best,” Sara says, and heads for the stairs, completely wiped out. She loves all of the Smoak-Queen brood, but good god, they’re exhausting.


	15. Why Should I Worry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stray AU

It took them two months to name the cat.

Oliver didn’t even want to keep him, but they ignored him from the minute Felicity came inside, something bundled in her arms. She’d found the kitten in the alley behind Verdant when she was walking in from her car. She wasn’t going to keep him, she said. She just wanted to get the poor thing out of the rain for a little while before she could take him to a shelter. But stepping inside illuminated just how skinny he was, a tiny orange creature with almost every rib punched out against his skin, and she couldn’t just leave him there.

Which was how Roy had found himself at the grocery store at eleven at night, his soaked hoodie earning him judging looks as he read ingredients in infant formula aloud to Felicity.

For the first couple of days, they weren’t even sure the kitten would survive, so it seemed foolish to call him anything. They took turns feeding him from a bottle, as Felicity had seen in a YouTube video. Oliver knew Sara often sneaked down during her breaks at the bar to cuddle with the kitten, which somehow only annoyed Oliver more.

(“The Foundry is no place for strays,” he’d said in what he felt was a completely reasonable tone.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Felicity had adjusted the blankets in the ridiculous heated cat-bed. “This place is made up of nothing _but_ strays.”)

Missions continued, only now they could occasionally hear Felicity murmuring to the kitten over the comms. Oliver gritted his teeth and focused. Foundry-Cat, as the others called him for a short-term name stopped looking like a skinny, underfed creature, barely able to mewl. He began exploring the area with all of the curiosity of a regular kitten. He tolerated Diggle and Roy, enjoyed butting his forehead against Sara’s chin, adored Felicity to no end, and followed Oliver around like a small, orange shadow, jumping at the frayed cuffs of his Arrow pants.

(“What are you making that face, Oliver?”

“I don’t have time to take care of a cat on top of everything else.”

“You’re not taking care of him, I’m taking care of him.”)

Felicity had a new chair brought in, one with a wider back that let the cat sleep by her ear as she worked, purring away. Oliver didn’t like the noise where silence—or Felicity’s talking—had been before. But once again, he clenched his teeth and dealt with it because the others wanted to keep the stupid cat.

(“Okay, what’s the face _now_ , Mr. Queen?”

Oliver pointed at the small creature perched on the salmon ladder bar. “I can’t work out with him around. He might get hurt.”

Felicity plucked up the cat, who immediately cuddled his head under her chin. “The two of you have the best reflexes in this place, I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“Great,” Oliver said under his breath as she walked away. “Now I’m losing a pissing contest with a cat.”)

It was Sara who came up with a name. They were in their usual spots around the Foundry—Lyla was in town, so Diggle had taken off, Roy was at work, Oliver was carefully creating patterns by shooting tennis balls in the range, Sara was working the salmon ladder (she’d picked rock over his scissors), and Felicity sat, likely hacking some CIA database for the fun of it. Foundry-Cat stretched indolently over the back of Felicity’s chair, his head flopped on her shoulder.

Oliver shot another tennis ball into the wall and muttered under his breath.

Near the top of the ladder, Sara let out a gasp, which made Felicity and Oliver whirl and Foundry-Cat look up in abstract concern that food might be coming from somewhere. The blonde just grinned. “I got it!”

“Got what?” Felicity asked. “The medicine I need after that heart attack you nearly just gave me?”

Sara brought herself down a few rungs and hung in the air, her grin broadening. “No, no, I got it. His _name._ You should call him Nar.”

Felicity and Oliver stared. “Nar?” Oliver asked.

To their surprise, the cat chirped.

“See?” Sara pulled herself up so that her belly rested against the bar. “He likes it. That should be his name. Hi, Nar. Hey, Nar.”

“Nar,” Felicity said slowly. The cat chirruped again before rising to his feet and stretching. “Well, it’s certainly unique. What’s it mean? Narnia?”

“No, just a nonsense word. It just works. Isn’t that right, Nar? Don’t you like your new name? What do you think, Oliver?” Sara swiveled to give him a deliberately wide grin.

Oliver drilled another tennis ball into the wall. “Name the beast whatever you want. Just keep him off the equipment while I’m working out.”

“Okay, I’m taking that as a vote for yes from grumpy green-pants. What do you think, Felicity?”

“I like it better than anything else we’ve come up with,” Felicity said. She smiled when the newly-named Nar rubbed his forehead against her cheek. “You like your name, Kitty-Nar? Huh?”

And now they were talking nonsense to the cat. Oliver sighed and went back to the task at hand.

An hour later, he pulled Sara aside. “What’s Nar really mean?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Sara’s grin popped up, bright and fresh despite the sweat on her chest and forehead. “It’s Arabic,” she said, shrugging as she twirled her bo staff. “It means fire.”

“Because he’s orange?” Oliver asked, squinting.

Sara shook her head and turned slightly so that he had no choice but to follow her gaze to where Felicity worked away at her desk, the shameless Nar stretched out across her desk with his paws in the air, clearly wanting attention. “Nope,” Sara said. “His name’s Nar because where there’s Smoak, there’s…”

“Fire,” Oliver said, and he groaned. “That is terrible. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Hey, I’m not the one stomping around in jealousy over a cat, Ollie.” Sara patted his shoulder and walked off whistling, evidently pleased with herself.

Oliver, meanwhile, walked—not stomped, he was definitely not stomping—over to the salmon ladder and started climbing to get the bar Sara had likely deliberately left up high. He was _not_ jealous over a cat. He just didn’t like the creatures. Cats were useless. Dogs at least served a purpose—they went running with you, they could serve as guard animals rather than just taking up space and rubbing all over you and…he was jealous of a cat.

He didn’t think he’d ever come quite this low before.

“Doing okay up there?” Felicity asked, and his grip slipped a little as he started. “Whoa! Oliver, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Are—are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Oliver said, ignoring the pride that was now stinging even harder from two very close hits. He cleared his throat and did a couple of rungs to make himself feel better. Then he sighed, conscience getting to him. “You like the name Nar?”

“Actually, I do. He’s got an unusual life, he deserves an unusual name.” Felicity took a deep breath. “Look, if you really, really hate having him here, I can keep him at my place. It’s just...I’m never there and it’s kind of nice having somebody around here while all of you are out in the field. I know I’ve been pushing this lately and that’s unfair to you because this is your safe space, and I should have realized that before. I’m sorry.”

“He can stay,” Oliver said. Apparently the hits to his conscience were coming from every direction tonight.

Felicity blinked. “W-what?”

“Nar. He can stay. Just keep him off the salmon ladder.” Oliver bounced up a rung, tensed his core, and bounced back down two, using the rhythm and the burn in his muscles to center himself.

When he paused, it was to find Felicity grinning at him with the megawatt smile, the one he didn’t get to see very often. “If you weren’t twenty feet up in the air and sweaty right now, I’d give you a giant hug,” she said, picking Nar up even though the kitten protested. She dropped a kiss on his little orange head. “Looks like tonight we’re celebrating with the Fancy Feast, Narry.”

Oliver decided two things in that moment: she should never find out that he knew what Nar’s name really meant and the Foundry wasn’t just a place for strays. It was a home.

(“Oh, quit giving him that look, Oliver, or I will send this picture of you sleeping with Nar on your chest to everybody in your contacts.”

“Letting you bring the cat when you moved in was a mistake.”)


	16. Eternally Bad Students

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Cooking Class AU - Oliver proves to Felicity that street smarts are not necessarily better than book smarts.

It takes Felicity twenty minutes to realize why Oliver Queen was kicked out of four schools. There’s probably more to it, but the truth of the matter is that when you really get down to it, Oliver Queen sucks as a student.

Which normally would be fine. He has many other stellar qualities—amazing ones, like the fact that he survived five years of hell and came back and is still a genuinely Good Person, or that he can hit any moving target with any projectile you give him, or the fit of his leather pants—so really, he should be fine making it through life. But he’s terrible at being a student, and even worse, he’s distracting her, and the class was _her_ idea in the first place.

“Why are you taking notes?” he whispers as the instructor goes over the proper ways to sift flour. “There’s a recipe. Madam Stewart said she was going to send it to us after class.”

“Because instructions are boiled down to the basics and I want to be able to get _all_ of the details. Smell, texture, taste.”

“You have an amazing memory. You can recite pi to the two hundredth place.”

“Six hundredth. And shh, I’m trying to listen.” Because she can feel him smiling, Felicity punctuates the order with an elbow to the ribs.

Madam Stewart catches the movement but apparently not the fact that Oliver was being a pain because she gives Felicity a disapproving look. Felicity sighs. Of course the boys are going to be prized in this class: the school must not get many casual male students. Half of the men look like they’ve been dragged in by their girlfriends. That’s what Oliver must look like the others, actually, but he’s not her boyfriend. He’s her bodyguard. And she hopes they catch the Jackal soon because she is really, really tired of getting cigarette-burned Barbies with glasses drawn on their faces on her doorstep. Any more hijinks like these and her landlord is going to raise her rent.

“You just got in trouble,” Oliver points out, ever helpful.

She narrows her eyes at him. “I know your PIN number and withdrawal limits.”

“So?”

“And your social security number, and your bank account number, and the password of that file you think I don’t know about. You better nice to me, bucko.”

“You’re missing a lecture on cornmeal.”

“Am I? Damn, that’s important.” She turns back to face Madam Stewart again, eyes wide. And she _knows_ he’s hiding a smirk behind his hand now, but the corn meal _is_ important. Ever since she moved, she hasn’t had Dewey’s Pizza except whenever Oliver has business that takes them to that part of town. So it’s either learn to make the best pizza she can produce or she’s stuck chewing the cardboard that calls itself Tatarelli’s. She gets enough cardboard in her diet, thanks. Despite her vehement protests, Queen Consolidated won’t update their vending machines. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Oliver affects an innocent look.

“The handsome smirk thing you’re doing. Stop th—I meant the smirk thing. I didn’t say handsome.”

He raises an eyebrow instead of ignoring her gaffe, and she’s embarrassed, but she can’t help but admit she likes that. She likes playful Oliver best. Well, not playful—he’s never quite up to that, but he can be droll and amused and sometimes even happy. Either way, that’s the Oliver she likes best. Bad Student Oliver, however, she could take or leave. 

He folds paper darts during the lecture on letting dough rise, which he flicks at her with his floury hands when they actually attempt the dough. When they set the dough off to the side to rise and turn their attention to the homemade sauce, he shows off with the knife, dicing the tomatoes into funny shapes and using the pieces to spell out “S.O.S.” and “HELP!” He even punctuates, which is her influence. And when Madam Stewart casts an unimpressed look at Felicity for the caricature of her face made out of tomato pieces and basil leaves on the table between the two of them, Oliver cheerfully throws her to the wolves.

She’s setting his phone to Swahili next time he’s on the Salmon Ladder. It’s one language he can’t speak.

When it’s time to take the dough out and shape it, Oliver brightens. “Finally,” he says, removing the damp paper towel from the top of the bowl.

“You’ve been waiting for this bit the whole time, haven’t you?”

He kneads the dough the way Madam Stewart has instructed, though he’s a little rough, his big hands pushing the dough around way too much. She’s a little jealous of that blobby lump of dough, but thankfully her brain shuts her mouth up before _that_ little trinket of sheer humiliation can come tumbling forth. “Yes, I have,” he says.

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” Oliver says, balancing the stretched dough out on the top of his fists, even though Madam Stewart has specifically cautioned them against actually tossing the dough yet, “this is, at its very core, a projectile.”

“Uh-huh,” Felicity says, pushing at the dough with her fingers, trying not to let it rip.

“And I am awesome,” he says, and flings the dough, “at projectiles.”

Felicity watches it happen in slow motion: he tosses the dough far too high and it spins, wobbling oddly to one side and listing. It comes down just as fast as it went up, skipping Oliver’s outstretched fists entirely and landing squarely on his forehead.

Felicity promptly loses it, laughing so hard that she ends up clutching the edge of the cooking table to keep herself upright, red in the face as Oliver lifts one corner of the dough and grimaces at her. In retaliation, he throws a handful of flour at her, and things only escalate from there.

When Madam Stewart issues an invitation to never return to the Starling City Cooking School, it’s to both of them this time.


	17. It Don’t Mean a Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Weird Shared Hobby AU for [shipperfey](http://andymcnope.tumblr.com).

When she saw the green bracelet on the cute guy’s wrist, Felicity wasn’t surprised. He didn’t look like the type to come to the McClure Community Center of his own volition.

She’d been warned about the green bracelets on her first day, during the orientation when they’d stuck her in a room with seven other instructors and a plastic folding table full of stale bagels and donuts. Orange, blue, and green meant community service, but green bracelets in particular meant the service was compulsory. So whatever the dude leaning on the other side of the doorway had done, it had landed him with more than fifty hours of community service.

Maybe he’d punched a cop.

He didn’t look like the type that would punch cops, either, though.

“Shot a man in Reno,” he said, and Felicity realized that not only were her thoughts inappropriate, but thanks to her mouth, they weren’t even private.

“Oh my god,” Felicity said.

She’d wandered by the little gym, where they held dance classes and let the summer camp kids play, because going straight out to her car after teaching her computer skills courses always felt a little iffy. Jeff in the third row spent the entire class staring at her like a creep. So she’d developed a habit of wandering around the community center for a good twenty minutes after her night class let out, as a precaution. It wasn’t like she had much to go home to, anyway. She was really counting the hours until she could return to MIT for her junior year. But either way, she’d taken to wandering and it was fun to watch the dance classes taking place from the doorway. She had two left feet, so she’d never take one, not in a million years, but it was kind of sweet to watch the different types of couples taking the classes.

Only tonight, her audience of one had somehow become an audience of two. She hadn’t even heard the guy—who looked about her age, maybe a little older—come up, but there he was, arms crossed over his chest, leaning one shoulder against the opposite door jamb of the double doors to the gym.

He aimed a lazy grin at her. “I didn’t really shoot a guy,” he said, speaking in a whisper since Madame Bernadine was conducting the swing class about fifty feet away. “It’s from a song.”

“I know it’s from a song.” But she was still blushing. The guy’s hair looked a little goofy, like he was trying to grow it out, but he was probably the hottest guy she’d seen at the community center. “I was just—my mouth gets away from me sometimes. It’s not pretty.”

“I appreciate that I don’t look like the type that would punch cops,” the dude said. “That’s probably the nicest thing anybody’s said about me.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “You’re welcome,” she said. “What are you—”

“If you’re going to join the class,” Madame Bernadine said loudly, and they both jolted and turned toward the gym, where the entire class was staring at them, “now is the time.”

“Oh, no, I was—we were just observing, we weren’t—”

But the dance mistress was striding toward them on her spindly little legs and even though Felicity wished to spontaneously develop super powers and teleport the hell out of there, nothing of the sort happened. The dance instructor simply grabbed her by the wrist and Didn’t-Punch-A-Cop Dude by the elbow, and she towed them toward the rest of the class. “There are no observers, only participants,” she said, giving them both a haughty look.

“But we’re not students,” her new friend said.

Madame Bernadine drew her shoulders back. “You suppose you are too good to learn how to swing dance?”

“Uh, no. Ma’am.”

“I thought so. You two will partner up. You have not missed much.”

When the Madame Bernadine strode away, Felicity’s new partner blew out a breath. They shared a long, puzzled look, and he stuck out a hand. “Oliver, since I guess we’re dance partners now.”

“Felicity,” she said, shaking his hand. “Nice to put a name to the face. I was worried I was going to have to start calling you Johnny.”

“Johnny?”

“As in Cash.”

Oliver still looked confused. He wore really nice clothing, Felicity saw, one of those T-shirts that looked soft and worn and probably cost more than her paycheck from the community center, and expensive-looking jeans.

“The singer?” Felicity went on. “Of _Fulsom Prison Blues_?”

He shook his head.

“You know, ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.’”

“Oh. Well, now I look like an idiot,” Oliver said.

“Excuse me,” Madame Bernadine said, and Felicity realized everybody was looking at them again. Heat flooded her cheeks. “I do hope we’re not interrupting the flirting with this swing dancing lesson happening right now.”

“No, ma’am,” Oliver said, giving her what looked like a super-charming grin.

Amazingly, the Madame Bernadine—who was famous throughout the community center for being a little bit of a dragon lady—actually seemed to soften. “You may hold off your courting until after the class.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Felicity could see Oliver smirking out of the corner of her eye when she turned to pay close attention to Madame Bernadine, but she tried to ignore it. She’d gotten into weird situations before—you didn’t have a babbling problem without at least a top ten greatest embarrassing hits—but this was probably the weirdest. She’d only wanted to avoid her kinda-creepy students after class, but now Felicity found herself standing across from Oliver, grasping his hands and praying her palms weren’t sweating as they attempted a basic swing step. He was, she discovered quickly, much better at it than she was.

Probably played sports and everything. It would explain how fit he looked, really.

“So,” he said, as Felicity counted under her breath, trying to keep time. “What brings a girl like you to a swing class like this?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Avoiding some of my creepy students.”

“You have creepy students?”

“I teach basic computing for adults here in the evenings. Summer job,” Felicity said. She fumbled a step and cursed under her breath.

Oliver waited until she got back on tempo. “Between high school semesters?”

“Ha, as if. I’m a junior at MIT. I know, I have one of those faces. I get that a lot.”

“MIT, huh? And you teach a class, so you must be pretty smart.”

“Really smart,” Felicity said, as her IQ was one of the few things she never really blushed about. “You put a test in front of me, I can ace it. What about you? I know you didn’t shoot a guy and you didn’t punch a cop, so what brings you to the center?”

Oliver’s fingers twitched and he grimaced. “I kind of…”

“Yes?”

“Peed on a cop.”

For a second, Felicity wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Then she grimaced and tried to yank her hands out of his.

“I’ve washed my hands since then!” Oliver said, laughing. “As you can imagine, I was drunk. They gave me community service and I chose to spend it here painting over the graffiti out back.”

“Oh my god,” Felicity said. “I have to ask. When you say you peed on a cop, was it, like, you were sitting on top of him and you wet your pants or did you, like, just whip it out and—oh my god, I’m stopping there.”

“Provided I do my community service, the details of that one are sealed and it’ll stay that way.”

“Oh fine.” Felicity tripped a little and righted herself. “You really _peed_ on a cop? How drunk were you?”

“Let’s change the subject,” Oliver said, grinning in a pained way. “I’m more curious about these creepy students of yours.”

“It’s just the one. And it’s fine if I hang out around the center for a little bit afterward. Of course, then I get dragged into swing dancing lessons with strangers, so maybe I need to rethink this strategy.”

“You’re pretty good at it, though,” Oliver said.

“Thanks, but now I know you’re lying,” Felicity said, and Madame Bernadine cleared her throat to get the class’s attention.

In all, they learned how to move forward and backward and a basic spin that night, and Felicity thought it would be odd, but Oliver actually made it fun. She was still going to have a story to tell her friends back at school next semester, though. They headed for the door with their new classmates at the end, but Madame Bernadine cleared her throat and kept both of them behind at the end.

“The class is sixty dollars per couple,” she said, “if you’re interested in continuing.”

Felicity and Oliver exchanged a look, and Felicity opened her mouth to tell her that it was just a mistake, that they hadn’t meant to do that, but Oliver shrugged. “Sure,” he said, pulling out his wallet. He handed the instructor three twenties and turned to Felicity. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“Uh, no,” Felicity said, “that’s fine.” It would definitely help her avoid her creepy student.

“All right.” He flashed that charming grin and her knees melted a little. “We’ll be here next week, then.”

“Can’t wait,” Felicity said, her voice weak.

Neither of them saw Madame Bernadine’s smirk as they left, but by the end of the last class, Felicity had the full story of the cop incident and Oliver’s number since he was starting at Harvard that fall (his fourth Ivy League school, apparently), and Oliver had an iTunes library full of Johnny Cash.

Madame Bernadine called them her best students for years.


	18. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Wig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The All Ladies are Vigilantes AU for [Ayefah](http://sabra-n.tumblr.com)

When she opened the box, Felicity shrieked. She’d thought about this scenario a lot, a lot more than she should have to if she were at all normal. But normalcy was in short supply since she joined Team Arrow, and now every mysterious box received, even if it’s at her desk at work, had the potential to hold body parts in it, and Felicity really, really hated that aspect of this being her life now.

So when she opened the box, which was just large enough to hold a head, and saw white-blonde hair, she shrieked.

Oliver came running, of course. “What? What is it?”

“It’s a…” Why wasn’t the box dripping? If there was a disembodied head in the box—don’t be Sara, don’t be Sara, please don’t be Sara—shouldn’t there be some drippage?

Oliver looked in and frowned. “A wig?” he asked, lifting it out of the box. “You’re screaming over a wig?”

“What? It’s not attached to a head?”

Oliver looked in the box. “No. Were you expecting it to be?”

“I—well, I wasn’t expecting a wig. Why would I expect a wig?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s Sara’s!” Felicity took it from him. The hair was as perfectly brushed as ever. She swore the Canary wig was magic sometimes. “Is this some weird ransom demand?”

“Well, there’s a letter with it, but that looks like Sara’s handwriting to me.” Oliver reached into the box again and handed her a single line of thick, cream-colored paper. “Maybe she’s sending you a souvenir.”

“Oliver, if Sara’s sending me a wig as a souvenir, then we’re going to have a talk about how strange _all_ of your ex-girlfriends are.”

“That’s fair,” Oliver said. “What does it say?”

Felicity unfolded the paper and frowned because while Sara might be a little terse at the best of times, it wasn’t really that nice to send somebody an unsolicited wig and only write, “Dear F, thought you could spread a little hope with this. – S.” Really, they had etiquette about this sort of thing.

“What on earth does she expect me to do with this? Am I…am I supposed to give it to a cancer patient? That can’t be sanitary. I’m going to call her.”

“She’s off the grid,” Oliver said.

Felicity set the wig on the table and started typing, bringing up the satellite hacking program she’d developed when Sara had first gone off to find herself. It was nice that Sara was so interested in self-actualization, but Felicity was a little more interested in keeping her friend alive, which occasionally meant checking in and alerting local authorities to people that wanted to kill Sara. It was just part of the Felicity Smoak care package, in her opinion.

“Looks like she sent some coordinates.” Oliver held up the box, pointing to the bottom and a series of numbers scrawled along the cardboard panel.

Felicity entered the numbers and let the tracking do its job. Her eyebrows drew low over her glasses as she zoomed in, though. The satellite picked up a piece of paper pinned to a table by one of Sara’s little knives. “It looks like she left me some kind of note?”

“What’s it say?”

“It says ‘Stop stalking me and get to work. Starling needs a canary.’ We have plenty of canaries. I saw an entire birdcage full of them at the—oh, she’s talking about _that_ Canary. Wait, does she really expect me to—am I supposed to…”

“Absolutely not,” Oliver said, crossing his arms over his chest. “No. Absolutely, absolutely not.”

“She did leave her spare costume here,” Felicity said, picking up the wig. “And I was just telling Digg last night that gendered crime has gone up sixteen percent since there was a sighting of the Canary.”

“I don’t care. You’re not putting that on and dressing up as Sara.”

“I’d have you and Digg with me the whole time.”

Oliver’s jaw went firm. “Over my dead body, Felicity.”

Six hours later, he let out a long grumble that was impressive in how many curse words it managed to mash together, Felicity thought as she climbed off of the back of his motorbike, her leather pants creaking a little. She adjusted the weird corsetty top, wondering why Sara felt so empowered by this outfit, as Diggle pulled his own bike up beside Oliver’s. He wore his typical leather jacket and black hood, and he winked at her.

“Remember the rules,” Oliver said as Felicity adjusted the wig. “You’re here as—”

“A figurehead, got it. Do not engage, stand back and let you two do all the work. I’m just here to look pretty.”

Oliver gave her a grumpy look.

“You did kind of explain it to her fourteen times earlier,” Diggle said.

“And I will make that fifteen if I feel the message isn’t getting through.”

“I am really good at looking pretty, I think I’ll be okay,” Felicity said as they approached the building. The wig bounced around her shoulders, feeling strange because it wasn’t the same weight and texture as her own hair. But it also kind of felt nice. No wonder Sara liked it so much. She felt like an entirely new person. “This city could use a pick-me-up. A morale booster, if you will, and blonde wigs, they’re a sign of hope. They’re a sign of—duck!”

She threw herself at Oliver, hitting him low enough to knock his center of gravity off balance so that they tumbled to the pavement, Diggle following. A spate of gunfire chewed holes into the wall of the building, right where their heads had been an instant earlier.

The vigilantes crawled behind a dumpster. “Well,” Diggle said. “No need to knock since they know we’re here. I recommend shooting back.”

“Why can’t we ever all just get along?” Felicity asked, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You wanted to be a symbol of hope, remember?” Oliver asked.

“I am capable of being a symbol of hope while not being shot at.”

The next morning, Felicity checked Lilith, Starling City’s local feminist news site, and grinned. They’d captured a blurry picture of her off of some surveillance footage she’d happened to leave lying around and there was a write-up about the return of their favorite superhero. And her ribs only ached a little because she’d mostly held her own in a fight against some henchmen, so she was calling this one a win.

“Sara might be a little crazy,” she said as she brought in coffees for Diggle, Oliver, and herself. “But maybe she’s got a couple of good ideas.”

“You realize that if you add being the Canary—”

“Pink Canary,” Felicity said. “Canary’s Sara. I’m just filling her wig while she’s gone.”

“Either way,” Diggle said. “That adds a third job to your already full docket, Felicity.”

Felicity took a seat, propping her feet up on the conference table since they were alone. “I can handle a couple of weeks.”

“You think Sara’s coming back in a couple of weeks?”

“No, but I have an idea.”

“Well,” Diggle said, taking a sip of his coffee. “That’s not ominous at all.”

* * *

Laurel let herself into her apartment and immediately sighed with relief, even though she knew from multiple experiences that her apartment didn’t actually equal safety. But she couldn’t help it. It had been a long day and she was finally past all of it. All of the research, all of the legal bullcrap the cops were trying to sneak past her, every single one of Kate’s sanctimonious looks, she let it roll off of her shoulders as she dropped her briefcase by the door.

And then she saw the box sitting on her dining room table.

Laurel ran her hand down her face. “Of course,” she said. “I can’t just relax with a nice tonic and tonic. No, I have to have yet another person break into my apartment and leave me a mysterious present. Figures.”

She walked up to the box and stared, puzzled, at the top, which read, “C/o your sister, sorry to break in. Didn’t want to leave this on your doorstep. Your turn. – Felicity.”

“Felicity?” Why would Oliver’s sidekick be leaving her boxes in her apartment? “The hell?”

When she looked in the box, her confusion only grew, especially when she pulled the blonde locks loose. And when the zip up hoodie-corset followed, Laurel’s eyebrows drew close together. Her jaw dropped a little when she pulled the pants free, especially as there was a post-it note. “I know you’re taller than the rest of us,” it read. “These have been altered for you.”

And finally, the little mask she’d seen Sara wear sat on the bottom of the box.

Laurel picked up her phone and searched through her contacts. Calling Sara bounced straight to Felicity, as she figured it would. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Laurel?” Oliver’s sleepy voice reminded her that it was after two in the morning. “What would I be kidding about?”

“Oh my god,” Laurel said. “I’m not sure what’s more disturbing—that there’s a wig in my house or that you’re sleeping with Felicity.”

She heard muttering on the other end of the phone line, though she didn’t catch all of it. “…Give the wig to Laurel?”

“It’s her turn,” Laurel heard Felicity, who sounded just as sleepy as Oliver, reply. “And of course she’d call right now. Because falling asleep on your partner’s lap would of course be interrupted by a call from his ex.”

“I can hear you both, you might as well put it on speaker,” Laurel said.

She heard Oliver’s grumble as he complied. “Why did you send a wig and a leather costume to me?” Laurel asked.

“It’s your turn.”

“I have a full-time job.”

“And Sara’s stuck outside Starling City and people need the Canary. You’re kickass anyway, I figured you could handle it.”

Laurel really, really wanted a drink. “I’m an ADA. That’s how I fight crime.”

“Consider it a busman’s holiday. Or pass it on to Thea, it’s her turn next.”

“ _What_?” Oliver asked.

“She called dibs,” Felicity said. “But she’s got finals this week, so it’s up to you, Laurel. See you at the Foundry tonight? I’m going back to sleep.”

“No, you can’t sleep, I have way too many questions for that and—you just hung up on me. Great. That’s great.” Laurel considered throwing her phone against the wall, but it had already cost her a pretty penny to back up her contacts once already, so she just blew out a long breath and set the phone on the table, staring down at the costume and the wig. “Is everybody in this city on drugs but me? I’m not doing this.”

And she stomped off to pour herself a stiff glass of water.

* * *

“Leaving early tonight?” Kate asked as Laurel stood up from her desk and started to pack away her things.

Laurel very carefully did not look at the bag in the corner, the one that had sat there and taunted her all day. She plastered a fake smile to her face. “Yeah, I put in a couple of long days lately, I just thought it’d be good to have some me-time.”

Kate made a noise in the back of her throat, but Laurel couldn’t tell if it was agreement or not. Ever since she’d bluffed her way back into her job, things had been a little cool with her boss. Laurel didn’t really care, even though sometimes it made office conditions awkward. “Mm-hmm,” Kate said. “Any exciting plans?”

“Nope,” Laurel lied. She picked up the file she’d been staring at all day while trying to ignore the bag in the corner. “Just, you know, some R&R. Maybe a bubble bath, a nice glass of…milk.”

“Very wholesome. I approve. Have a good night, Laurel.”

“See you, Kate.”

She walked out of the office with the bag tucked under her arm like contraband, the file secured away in her briefcase. It had crossed her desk after lunch. She’d read some pretty sick and twisted things, but knowing that Josiah Holton was going to get off because of his rich uncle’s connections burned in her gut. And the costume was _there_ and everybody knew the Canary went after men that had attacked women…

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said when she strolled into the Foundry an hour later, pulling her hair back into a very tight bun so that she could fit the wig on over it. She already wore the pants—how Felicity knew her size was beyond her—and the top, but the wig remained in the bag.

Felicity raised her eyebrows. “Good look for you,” she said.

“I am not joining the Vigilante Club. This is temporary.”

“Thea’s next,” Felicity said.

Oliver, halfway up the salmon ladder, glared. “No she isn’t.”

“She called dibs,” Felicity said, going back to her computer. When Laurel dropped the file at her elbow, she perked up. “What’s this?”

“You never saw it, got me?”

“Ooh, we’ve got a Canary mission. I like it. Let me get you a comm set.”

“Just like that?” Laurel asked, blinking.

Felicity shrugged. “You wear the wig, you make the calls.”

“I do not approve of this,” Oliver said.

“Aw,” Felicity said, but she was already typing away at the computer. “Need any help with the wig? I got pretty good at getting it on and off. Sara showed me how before she left.”

“I got it.” Laurel grabbed a mirror that was clearly around for just that purpose and focused on squaring her hair away. It took her a few seconds to make her voice sound disinterested enough as she said, “Heard from Sara lately?”

“She sent a postcard.” Without looking back, Felicity picked it up and held it out. “I meant to drop it off with the box. Sorry about the whole breaking and entering thing, by the way. Your apartment’s really cute.”

“Thanks?” Laurel read the postcard—just a couple of lines, typical of Sara—and wished that her sister were actually the type that talked more. Would a phone call really hurt? She shoved those feelings aside and put the wig on, blinking a little at the way it changed her entire face. Was this what Sara felt every time she donned the wig? Why did the blonde hair make her feel so powerful?

“Yeah, I know exactly how you feel,” Felicity said when Laurel turned toward her. “I have no idea what Sara was thinking, but I can’t fault her for it. Ready to take down some bad guys?”

“Yeah,” Laurel said, surprised at just how ready she felt. “I think I really am.”

* * *

“You know,” Thea said when she strolled into the Foundry, already wearing her favorite part of leather boots, “it’s about damned time somebody invited me to be a superhero.”

“We’re not superheroes,” Diggle said, though he looked like he was laughing. “Looking good, Miss Queen.”

“I’m not sure blonde is my color, but,” and Thea did a twirl. “There’s just something about this, isn’t there? I look kick-ass and I can kick ass at the same time. I’m excited.”

Oliver sighed. He still wore his Oliver Queen playboy business suit and the grumpy look on his face to match. “I suppose lodging my protest will just fall on deaf ears,” he said, mostly to Diggle.

“If my crime-fighting boyfriend doesn’t have a problem with me dressing up in leather and fighting some baddies, my crime-fighting brother can shut up about it,” Thea said, clattering down the rest of the stairs. “Felicity, what do you think? Do I make a great Red Canary?”

Roy grinned. “Red Canary?”

“You look awesome,” Felicity said. “Best Red Canary ever.”

“Why, thank you.” She gave the IT nerd a high-five and then leaned over to give Roy a long kiss that had Oliver actually breathing out through his teeth. She separated from Roy. “Problem, Ollie?”

He stalked to the glass coffin-slash-museum exhibit that held his hood and started to strip. “Nope. Let’s just get this over with. Stupid phases.”

“The wig is not a phase, brother mine.”

“You two and Laurel are weirdly obsessed with that accessory.”

Thea patted the wavy locks. “Can we help it if we’re stylish bitches? I’m so ready for this.”

“Being a vigilante isn’t about fun and games, Thea,” Oliver said.

“Then clearly you’re doing it wrong. C’mon, Roy.”

“Sorry, boss, gotta do what the lady in the wig says,” Roy said.

Thea thought she could hear Oliver mutter something about throttling Sara next time he saw her, but she didn’t care. She caught the earwig Felicity tossed her way, grabbed her boyfriend by the hand, and trotted up the stairs. A few seconds later, she heard Oliver’s grumble as he donned his costume and followed along.

Three hours later, clutching the red bow she’d had custom-made (well, Felicity had, after Thea had expressed her interest in learning about archery), Thea stared at the body on the ground, the blonde locks falling around her face. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t breathing and that was her fault.

“I warned you,” Oliver said.

“Oliver,” Roy, who was somewhere behind Thea, having dispatched his own two henchmen, said.

“I warned you this would happen.”

Thea swallowed hard, trying not to think about the man on the ground and how his eyes weren’t ever going to open again. “He was trying to kill you, Ollie.”

“I could have stopped him. You didn’t need to be here.”

“Shut up.” Thea grabbed another red-fletched arrow from her quiver. “This was my choice and I’ve got as much right as any of you to be here.”

Oliver’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “That damned wig—”

“It was never about the wig, Ollie. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the cops are probably coming, so we should make ourselves scarce.”

But for all her bravado, Thea made sure she was alone when she threw up her dinner later, thinking about the man she had killed. And she accepted the warm, damp wash cloth from Felicity without a word because out of all of them, she had a feeling Felicity, Sara, and Laurel understood best. They’d worn the blonde. They’d been there.

* * *

Thea lasted a record six weeks as the Canary (Laurel had hung up the corset after a month because her boss was starting to get suspicious, Felicity worked best in the Foundry, and Thea had something to prove) before they decided it was time to pass the wig back. So Felicity did her research, carefully using image searches to find any trace of the elusive Sara Lance, and when she was confident she’d tracked their friend and sister down, she lovingly packed the wig and the back-up mask into the box with a letter from each of the three of them. And she used Oliver’s company card to send it off to parts unknown.

For a few weeks, they weren’t sure it had arrived. Until one morning, after a movie marathon and training session in the Foundry had led to them grabbing blankets and sleeping on the training mats, they all woke up to Sara herself standing on the staircase, giving them an unimpressed look. “All right, which one of you dorks got blood on my wig?”


	19. Like a Demon House on Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara’s worlds collide for a little while. It’s great fun.

Sara Lance is having the time of her life.

She’s exhausted, don’t get her wrong, but she’s loving it. Meeting up with Felicity in the marketplace in Nanda Parbat was the ultimate surprise (“Um, so it’s kind of not safe for me to stay in Starling City right now. I mean, it’s kind of a long story? But yeah, there’s a group of people and they’re all trying to kill me and I didn’t do anything _wrong_ , per se, but maybe I could stay with you while Digg and Oliver take care of it?” “God, they did everything but pin a note to your lapel, didn’t they? You could have just said you missed me.”), but Sara can’t deny that she loves having her friend around. It’s one of the greatest things in the world to get to show somebody the cooler parts of the life she lived in hiding for years, especially if that somebody is Felicity, who latches onto everything with wide-eyed wonder and a sense of inquisitiveness that genuinely makes Sara smile every time.

The problem is that things didn’t go so well in Mumbai a few days ago and so instead of running missions for her father, Nyssa al Ghul is basically on vacation, too, waiting for the sling to come off of her left arm. Sara loves her. She loves Felicity.

And the two of them together is her favorite thing ever. Especially since they’re kind of a bad influence on each other.

“You know,” Sara says as Nyssa argues rapid-fire with a street vendor over the earrings Felicity had been admiring, “you really have the touch with prickly assassins.”

“I told her I was fine without the earrings,” Felicity says, looking distressed. “They’re cute but I’m a little worried she’s going to gut him, and it’s not worth that for a pair of earrings.”

“No, it’s okay.” Sara bumps her friend’s shoulder. “She gets a kick out of this part.”

“She’s incredibly terrifying.”

“‘Hey, let’s blow up the applied sciences building!’” Sara says in a high-pitched voice and Felicity makes a face. A few feet away, Nyssa starts gesticulating with her free hand, which she only does when she’s incognito (for once, they’re not the Yellow Bird and the Heir to the Demon, they’re just a bunch of girlfriends out for a weekend trip in southeast Asia). “Just pointing out, there are differing levels of terrifying and you get your own.”

“I’m flattered? But not really. God, is she really going to gut him? I don’t want to see exposed intestines before lunch.”

But before Sara can reassure her, the vendor lets out a gusty sigh and holds out his hand. Nyssa passes over the money and plucks up with the earrings with a self-satisfied look. “That shall teach you to doubt, Felicity Smoak, MIT Class of Oh-Nine,” she says, presenting the earrings to Felicity.

“Thank you. And you’re right. I’ll never doubt again,” Felicity says. Sara can see the moment where she debates giving Nyssa a hug, but she just takes the earrings and puts them in on the spot. “What do you think?”

“Cute,” Sara says, since they are.

“Adequate. I should have bargained for a lower price.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I love them. How much do I owe you?”

“The Heir to the Demon does not accept money from others,” Nyssa says.

“Well, thank you for the gift, then. Do you two wanna get lunch? I’m hungry and we have _got_ to have more dumplings. Seriously, every dumpling I’ve tried here has been amazing.”

“Very well,” Nyssa says, giving Sara a long-suffering look that Sara knows is complete and utter bullshit. Nyssa loves food just as much as Felicity does. Having the hacker along gives her an excuse to indulge herself for once. “There is a place not far. I hear the food is superior to anything else we might find in the area?”

“How do you know this stuff? Do they make, like, a Yelp for Assassins?” Felicity asks and Nyssa’s half-veil covers her smile as the trio makes their way down the street.

“What is Yelp?” Nyssa asks Sara under her breath half a block later, and Sara just laughs.


	20. So Much Cooler Online

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The News/Gossip/TV Reviews Website AU

“And finally…” Felicity heard the rustling of paper clearly through the terrible probably-bought-at-Wal-Mart-for-ten-bucks microphone on Laurel’s computer as the head editor for Foundry Talk sorted through her things. “One last show to cover. This one’s coming on the BW, so it’ll be cheekbone casting, but it looks promising.”

“What’s it about?” Princess_Queen’s face appeared on the main screen of the Google Hangout video for a blip of a second before she was relegated to one of the boxes below. She was one of the few that wasn’t represented by her Gmail icon. Felicity herself had opted to keep video turned off, so whenever she spoke, a little panda with glasses and pink lipstick filled the main video box.

Laurel looked down at something the others couldn’t see. “Team of young superheroes,” she said, frowning.

“Lame,” MagicMerlyn228 said.

Felicity was glad that her microphone was on mute because she snorted as she took a sip of tea. That was rich coming from the guy who covered all of the reality TV shows for FT. Luckily, he seemed to actually _like_ them.

“There’s a girl archer, a shapeshifter, a couple of different alien princes, some other characters. Looks pretty diverse,” Laurel said.

Da-Black-Canary’s laugh filtered through the chat at the same time as TheManInTheHood’s, causing a tiny war between their different avatars. “Aren’t superheroes kind of over?” Canary asked.

Laurel sighed. They were coming to the end of the monthly “staff” meeting, and Felicity knew this was about the point where discussions started getting derailed, especially if Huntress was there (she’d cried off for some kind of charity event that Felicity was sure was probably just a rave somewhere; Laurel’s fault for hiring party girl Helena Bertinelli as one of her reporters). “Any takers?” she asked.

“I think it kind of sounds interesting,” Felicity said, turning her mic back on.

“Really, Hobby?” Hood asked, sounded skeptical.

“Superheroes are great. I don’t know why you’re all mocking this show,” Felicity said.

“Because it sounds ridiculous?” Hood asked.

“You’re a heathen,” Felicity said, but she kept plenty of affection in her voice. She and Hood were famous on Foundry Talk for not agreeing on much, though their online sparring had never turned vicious. In fact, most days she kind of looked forward to it. Hood had such a passionate, emotional way of looking at things that she wouldn’t have expected from a guy, and it neatly intersected across her own preferences of looking at things critically and analytically. And he was witty, too.

Too bad he lived a thousand miles away, she had no idea what he looked like, and they didn’t even know each other’s real names. Like everybody else, he called her Hobby, the shortened version of HackingIs(Not)MyHobby.

“Tell you what,” Laurel said before Hood could reply. “Hobby, you’ve got too many things on your plate already. So why don’t you and Hood split up this show?”

“Sorry?” Felicity asked.

“What?” Hood asked.

“Work out if you want to switch off or do a debate type post every week, and get your ideas to me by the end of the week, with the rest?” Laurel said. “Now, moving on to the final order of business—website redesign’s coming, and I haven’t received feedback from at least four of you…”

Twenty minutes later, freed from the staff meeting, Felicity rose to go make a new mug of tea and a message notification popped up in the corner. TheManInTheHood had invited her to a Hangout. Felicity felt her pulse rate speed up considerably. Carefully, she set the mug back on her desk, smoothed her hair back, and clicked to accept the invite.

Instead of the avatar she’d grown familiar with—a man in a hood, shown in sharp profile—a man’s face filled the video screen. Felicity’s jaw nearly dropped. He was even more gorgeous than he’d been in her daydreams. How was that even possible? She’d been expecting a schlubby guy in a hockey jersey, not the guy in front of her with amazing eyes and a chiseled jaw.

His forehead wrinkled. “Hello?” he asked. “You’re staring.”

“How can you—oh, crap on a cracker.” Her video had turned on automatically. So not only could he see her in her oldest T-shirt and bathrobe, but he’d caught her literally staring at him with her jaw dropped. Felicity immediately wanted to dive under the desk because: “You’re really hot. I mean—hot like in _hot_ , right? Because you’re not wearing a shirt, so it must…be warm…there…”

“Oh, sorry.” He looked down at himself like he’d forgotten. “I can put on a shirt if it bothers you.”

“No!—I mean, no, it’s fine. I’m okay. I’ve seen, um, shirtless male torsos before and—please stop talking, Felicity, _please_ stop talking.”

To her surprise, Hood began to smile. It did amazing things to his face. “Felicity?”

“What?”

“That’s your name?”

“Oh. Um, yes.”

“It’s a beautiful name.” His smile only broadened. Felicity kind of wished he’d actually stop that because she was on the very dangerous brink of stammering. “I’m Oliver. Since we’ve never officially met as ourselves.”

“Nice to meet you, Oliver.” Felicity took a deep breath. “I’m normally less of a spaz, and I actually don’t live in the bathrobe, I promise. I wear real clothes, like a human, sometimes.”

“I also wear real clothes.” He paused, tilting his head. “Sometimes.”

Felicity realized that she was going to have some very naughty dreams about that head-tilt. That was something to freak out about later. “What can I do for you, Oliver?” she asked. She’d really thought his name would be something like Michael or John. But Oliver seemed to fit him.

He shrugged. “Just thought we could talk about how we’re going to cover this show Laurel gave us. Do you actually want to hand it off week to week?”

“That’s probably easiest?” Felicity asked. “I mean, it’s not consistent, but FT’s a gossip site that does TV show reviews. Setting a precedent for each different show’s not too bad.”

“Or,” Oliver said, looking thoughtful as he rubbed his fingers together near his jaw, “we could try our hand at co-writing. It’d mean lots of time on the chat every week, and we could set it up like a debate.”

“Sure, let’s do that,” Felicity said quickly. Too quickly. To cover the gaffe, she brought up a search on the other monitor for the show. “It looks like they’ll be tackling some social justice issues, so I’ll probably get some mileage out of that, and there should be lots of stunts, so you can tie in with sports reporting of some kind, right? Don’t you think?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to look back at the other monitor and gave him a puzzled look. He had his chin propped up on his fist and he was staring at the monitor with almost a dreamy look. Had she really bored him that quickly? “Oliver?”

He jolted. “Sorry. I was listening. Those are good ideas, yeah. I’m going to write them down.” He pulled out a pen and paper, and while his head was bent, she took a minute to scope out the room behind him. Everything was green and gray and seemed very male, from the set of weights in the corner, to the Starling City Kings poster over the neatly-made up bed behind him. She quickly looked down to make sure he didn’t catch her snooping when he looked up.

Before he did, the door opened and a woman strolled in. Felicity blinked because that was PrincessQueen right in front of her, on Oliver’s webcam. She hadn’t even known they knew each other.

Oliver jerked upright and shot a look over his shoulder. “Go away,” he told Princess.

“Talking to a gi-i-i-r-l, Ollie?” Princess asked. “A real one this time?”

“Go _away_ , Thea.”

“Who is it?” Thea bounced closer while Oliver looked pained. She was his sister, Felicity realized. Thea waved. “Hey, random internet stranger friend of my brother!”

“Hey, Princess,” Felicity said dryly.

Thea’s jaw dropped. “Hobby?” she asked.

“In the flesh.” Felicity sketched a little bow.

“Oh my god, you’re even prettier than you sound. No _wonder_ Ollie’s always talking about—”

Oliver jerked and the sound cut off immediately. Felicity blinked, watching in confusion as Oliver covered the webcam with his hand, already turning toward his sister. When he uncovered it twenty seconds later, Thea had abandoned the field. He clicked the sound back on. “Sorry, Felicity. My sister is…yeah, you know her, I don’t have to explain. But I’d better go.”

“I’ll write these up and send them on to Laurel,” Felicity said, still feeling very confused.

“Chat later?” Oliver asked. “Maybe I’ll wear a shirt next time.”

“You don’t have to—and oh, god, I’m gonna go before I embarrass myself anymore.”

“Bye, Felicity,” Oliver said with a final, heart-melting smile. Felicity managed to babble out something that was close enough to a farewell to count, and cut off her video.

It took several minutes for her heart-rate to slow down. TheManInTheHood was _hot_ and she was, she realized, in deep, deep trouble.


	21. Cat and Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Jewel Thief/FBI AU

The sound of a crowbar smacking across an open palm was a unique one, FBI Agent Oliver Queen thought as he watched the gentleman in the ill-fighting suit take giant, measured steps toward him. It was also one he would be hearing in his nightmares. Provided, he thought as his stomach rolled in sour anticipation of a beat-down, the sound of the crowbar hitting his skull wasn’t the last thing in his life. 

Digg had pointed out that he was digging too deep into the affairs surrounding Aaron Farrington’s operations. He’d been right, which was why Oliver was currently standing on the second floor of an abandoned cement factory, watching a man named Li’l Marko approach him with a crowbar while Marko’s friends gathered round, eyeing him with gleeful anticipation. The name Li’l Marko was clearly meant to be irony because the man had six inches on Oliver and he was built like a brick shithouse that all shithouses wanted to grow up to be.

There was no way he was getting out of this one alive.

“Hold it,” Oliver said, holding up a hand. He spoke calmly and authoritatively. It was a trick he’d picked up from a speech by Meryl Streep, and apparently the Queen of Hollywood knew what she was talking about, for Marko slowed to a halt. “One second.”

He peeled out of his suit coat, making sure the badge clipped to his belt was perfectly visible to the onlookers. “It might get messy,” he told Marko. “What? It’s a new jacket.”

Marko’s face, uglier than a mangled rhinoceros and twice as leathery, twisted as he snorted his opinion of that. Oliver used the brief reprieve to roll up his shirtsleeves. If he could grab the crowbar and beat Marko down, he had a fighting chance. Provided none of the onlookers pulled their guns and shot him.

“Ready now?” Marko asked, clearly impatient.

Oliver’s jaw firmed. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Good. Wasting time.”

But before he could take a step, a throat cleared behind him. Oliver’s brow furrowed when he realized it was a woman, but since she was directly behind Marko, he had no idea who it was.

Until she said, “Fellas,” and he recognized that voice.

Marko turned and Oliver saw _her_ for the first time. She’d gone by several names in the years Oliver had been chasing her, so many that he had no idea what her real name was. Various IDs had called her Jen, Sam, Camille, Amanda, Anna, Lexie, Sophie, Lea, Rachel, but he preferred to call her Felicity in his head, as that was the first name she’d given him, right before she’d slipped out of her handcuffs and into the night for the first time. Usually if he caught up to her, she wore the dark clothes she preferred for her burglary jobs, but now she wore a crisp black pants suit.

“Who are you?” Marko asked, blinking stupidly at her.

She jerked a thumb at Oliver. “That idiot’s partner. I’m afraid you can’t kill him.”

“Why not?”

“The jerk still owes me five bucks. Well, with inflation that’s probably closer to six bucks, but inflation doesn’t really matter between partners, right?” She gave Marko a giant grin, but he could see actual nervousness making her jaw shake a little bit.

When she glanced at him, he mouthed, ‘Get out of here!’ Farrington’s men wouldn’t quibble at killing them both.

She shook her head at him and turned back to Marko.

“What?” the giant asked.

“Can’t you just break a kneecap or something? He’s nosy, but he’s actually mostly harmless. We’ve been chasing this one bandit for years, and he still can’t catch her.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said under his breath.

“Just saying,” Felicity said, turning that guileless smile on Marko.

“Boss says I gotta kill him. You’re a Fed, I gotta kill you, too,” Marko said. “You know too much.”

The men behind Oliver all jeered.

Felicity, on the other hand, sighed. “I was worried you were going to say that,” she said, and like lightning, she struck. She blew a handful of powder right into Marko’s face. While he recoiled and shouted, she charged straight at Oliver.

Because he had no idea what she was _doing_ , she hit him solidly in the middle, driving him back. They crashed through a window together and fell. He didn’t even get out a scream before they both jerked to a halt, stopped by the harness that Felicity had somehow managed to hide under the pants suit.

Oliver gaped as she unhooked herself. “What the hell?”

“Wirework,” Felicity said, and they took off running. “How do you think I got so good in the first place?”

“I thought that was _Mission Impossible_ bullshit.”

“This is why you’ve yet to catch me, Mr. Fed Man. Gotta go, there’s my ride. You should hit a main road about a quarter mile that way,” Felicity said, and she vanished into the trees like a ghost. He tried to lunge after her, but his hands caught nothing but empty air. And hearing shouts behind him that Marko and his buddies were coming, he didn’t have time to look for her. He took off in the direction she’d pointed, eventually finding safety at a gas station so he could call his actual partner rather than the woman that had mysteriously arrived, without rhyme or reason, to save his life. Even though he’d devoted said life to tracking her down and throwing her into prison.

How had she known? She’d been indirectly the reason he had been looking into Aaron Farrington’s industry in the first place, as she’d hit up the man’s museum in Barcelona to deprive him of a few priceless artifacts. But had her showing up out of the blue meant she kept tabs on him? What did that even mean?

Two days later, he received a box at his desk. Curious, he pried off the tape. The jacket he’d discarded at the cement factory lay inside, freshly dry-cleaned, and a note fluttered loose.

_No fun playing cat and mouse if the cat’s dead. Until next time, Mr. Fed Man._


	22. She Blinded Him (With SCIENCE!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Mythbusters AU - **_Who are the Legendbreakers? Barry Allen and Oliver Queen, between them more than twenty years of special effects experience. Joining them: Felicity Smoak, John Diggle, and Iris West. They don’t just tell urban legends. They put them to the test: LEGENDBREAKERS._**

Even though she’d officially moved from producing to on-camera talent, Felicity still got the calls.

“He’s grouchy again,” was the opening salvo from Caitlin, who’d taken over the producing spot in Felicity’s place.

“How bad?” Felicity asked, closing the textbook over her finger to mark her place. They usually called her before any of the others because she’d been there from the first day, when it had been little more than a skeleton camera crew, a few producers, the hosts, and Oliver Queen’s staff. She’d seen them through every explosion, literal and metaphorical.

“Cisco says he can keep it toned down this time, but he thinks it’s getting worse. The execs are probably going to send notes about it. We don’t have the budget or time to do reshoots, not on this experiment. The budget—”

If there was one thing she was grateful for leaving behind as a producer, it was worrying about the budget. “Tell Cisco I think he’s magical,” she said, “and remind him about that Emmy nod he got last year. If he can’t edit it out, maybe work it into the narration.”

“Will do, but can you talk to him? It’ll sound nicer coming from you than from me.”

“Sure.”

“And find out if somebody kicked his dog or something. He’s getting way too grouchy.”

Grouchiness was, Felicity knew, the reason Oliver Queen, when approached by an Australian production company to take his special effects business and apply scientific method to urban legend, had asked for a co-host. Specifically, an exuberant friend of his. And in truth, the show worked because of their odd couple pairing. Barry Allen, built for speed on a svelte frame, just looked ridiculously reedy next to Oliver’s I-hit-the-gym-religiously-at-five-a.m. powerhouse of a body. Barry’s enthusiasm shone through in every frame, like an eager puppy ready to learn SCIENCE!, and Oliver was a lot slower to smile, but his laughter was infectious. They’d taken the Wow-Science! Channel by storm in their first season, and the show had only continued to grow in popularity.

“I’ll talk to him,” Felicity said, and hung up.

She kept a tiny office in the back of the Star City Labs warehouse, the secondary effects house that Legendbreakers had set up for the Build Team when it became obvious that Felicity, Diggle, and Iris had established themselves as a proper team on air. It was a five-minute drive to get to the Queen Consolidated headquarters, where Oliver and Barry worked, but she knew they’d still be around.

Indeed, she found them in the back room, each bent in contemplation over a different drafting table as they worked on blueprints. Barry looked up first, swiveling with a grin. “Felicity, hey!”

“Hey, Barry. How goes the…” She leaned over to get a look at his sketch. “Crossbow?”

“ _Newspaper_ crossbow,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Neat, right?”

“It’s a prison myth,” Oliver said, only turning his head. He smiled at her without a trace of the grouchiness Caitlin had griped about. “It’s not on the docket, not yet, but we’ve been throwing it back and forth.”

Barry propped his battered chucks up on the edge of the desk. “What brings Build Team over here? Finally need our help?”

Oliver balled up a spare sheet of paper and threw it at his partner. It bounced off the side of Barry’s head. “She’s smarter than either one of us,” he said.

“Hey,” Barry and Felicity said at the same time. Barry continued, “I’m trying to be charming here!”

“There’s no need to be mean to him, Oliver,” Felicity said, picking up the paper and tossing it into the trashcan. It missed, of course. “And as much as I appreciate the offer, Barry, I came over to talk to Oliver.”

“You’re in trouble,” Barry said.

“No, he’s not.”

“You’ve got ‘Caitlin just called and asked me to do something’ face.” Barry turned to Oliver. “That definitely seems like trouble to me, dude.”

“That’s a face I make?” Felicity asked.

Oliver held his hands up in a time-out position and rose to his feet. “I can’t juggle equations my head and listen to you two at the same time. Let’s talk outside.”

“I’ll just be here on my lonesome,” Barry said, leaning his head back. “Coming up with a better crossbow than Oliver’s.”

“You wish,” Oliver said over his shoulder as Felicity followed him out of the room. To Felicity, he said, “Drink?”

“Please.”

After the first season of the show, Oliver had retrofitted a bar into the unused space in the QC headquarters for the crew and the other engineers. His logic had been that they all spent so much time together anyway, they might as well be comfortable, and he had the family money to supply them all with free booze, so why not? Morale had skyrocketed between the seasons and Felicity was convinced that most of their breakthroughs had happened at the dartboard.

It still had a picture of their executive producer on it, Felicity noted as she took up residence on one of the stools.

“What’ll it be?” Oliver asked.

“How are your martini skills?”

“Not nearly as good as Sara’s.”

Since Sara had been a bartender to put herself through a very prestigious engineering program, Felicity conceded the point. “Rum and Diet Coke, then. Light on the rum.”

“I think I’ll have the same, actually.” He pulled up a couple of tumblers and a can from the fridge. “What’s Caitlin on you about now?”

Felicity propped her chin up on her fist. He still had a bandage on his arm from a botched explosion the week before—which would of course make it in the final edits, she was sure—and it was rather distracting because she liked watching his hands. “She wants to know who kicked your dog.”

“What?” Oliver asked.

“The editors say you’ve been grouchy. Their words, not mine.” Felicity squinted at him as he cracked open a new bottle of rum and poured a little into each glass. “So they’re wondering if anybody kicked your dog, or what’s going on.”

“I don’t have a dog.”

“You should get a dog. You could bring it to work and—no, that’s a bad idea, we deal with explosive ordnance way too much to keep something that doesn’t live in a cage on the site. Or Roy, actually.”

“Didn’t Iris say you had to be nicer to the interns?” Oliver asked, his lips tilting up wryly.

“I’ll be nice to him when he’s nice to me.” She accepted her drink with a thanks. “Is something going on with you, Oliver? I don’t think dudes can get PMS. Not that it’s PMS, it drives me nuts when somebody assumes I’m on my cycle because I’m in a bad mood and—oh, sorry. Here, I can help you clean that up.”

Oliver, who’d coughed up his drink all over the bar top, waved off her assistance. “I’ve got it. Surprised me, that’s all. And, er, noted. About the bad mood thing. Do we need to reshoot?”

“Caitlin’s pretty sure they can work around it this time. But—” Felicity broke off mid-sentence as the door to the bar opened and her co-host stepped in. “Digg! You’re still here?”

“I was fixing one of the trebuchets.” He glanced at the dartboard on his way to get a beer. “Good use of The Wall. I approve. Am I interrupting?”

“Nope. According to Caitlin, I’m apparently Oliver the Grouch,” Oliver said.

Felicity laughed. “Good one,” she said, and gave him a high-five. “You’re probably not _that_ grouchy. You know how Wow-Science! is, they like us to be creepily joyful all the time.”

“You never seem to have a problem with it,” Oliver said.

“That’s because I get to work with this guy here,” Felicity said, leaning over to give Diggle a light punch in the shoulder. “You know what? Maybe we should shake things up, and you come work on the Build Team for a little bit instead of with Barry. Let him work with Iris. You know he’s completely in love with her, he’d jump on that. And—what was that, Diggle? Did you say something?”

Diggle gave her an innocent look. For some reason, Oliver was glaring daggers at him. “Had something in my throat,” he said, and toasted them with his beer. “I like this idea. We can make Oliver be the one the bulls chase when we do the matador myths next week.”

“I can think of better people to do that,” Oliver said, still glaring.

Felicity gave them both a long, puzzled look. “Okay,” she said, getting the feeling that something was definitely happening over her head. “Well, either way, give it some thought. Switching up the teams will give us opportunity for new banter.”

“Good enough for me,” Oliver said.

Luckily, thanks to some fast-talking and Oliver’s quiet stare, the producers got on board with the new plan pretty quickly. Felicity never did figure out what had made Oliver so cranky that the editors took note. After all, he seemed perfectly happy and content whenever he worked on an urban legend with her and Digg.

And the new grouping gave them quite a nice bump in the ratings, too, so as far as Felicity was concerned, they all won this time.


	23. The One Where Felicity's Services Are For Hire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conman AU

Felicity was the first to arrive at the meeting location. She wished it had been by design, but really, she’d overestimated the amount of traffic and sitting in her car outside of an abandoned warehouse had felt foolish. Why did they always pick places like this? Sure, they had a chance of being overheard in a coffee shop, but coffee shops also had the advantage of having, you know, coffee. And free wifi, usually.

Inside, the team leader had set up a little area for the team to meet, ringed in plastic picnic tables. _I take it back about not having coffee_ , she thought, staring at a very fancy espresso machine. An array of pastries had been laid out very fastidiously, a white board had been set up, and a table in the middle held seven blue folders. The entire thing combined the cold atmosphere of abandoned property with the efficient feeling of a board room.

“Miss Smoak, I presume,” said a voice, and a man slipped out of the shadows. She didn’t shriek, though it was a near thing. “I apologize if I startled you.”

“No, no, it’s okay, I’m used to men coming out of dark, creepy corners like that. Happens all the time.”

The man gave her a reserved smile and held out a hand. “I’m sure. Walter Steele, at your service. I’m pleased you could join us today.”

“I was happy to get the job offer. Felicity Smoak, as you already know, hacker extraordinaire.”

“The others should be here shortly. While you’re waiting, can I interest you in a cappuccino?”

“Er, yes, that would be amazing,” Felicity said. She’d been up until three in the morning working on the algorithms she would need to bypass the security systems that had been sent to her via anonymous email. A simple logic attack wouldn’t work this time. “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

One by one, others on the team trickled in. Evidently they’d already met Mr. Steele, for he merely exchanged polite nods with them as they picked up pastries and took their coffees to the table. Seating appeared to have been pre-assigned. She really was a late addition to the team, Felicity realized, as she covertly studied the others. A brunette with seriously wicked eyeliner game slouched at the opposite end of the table, picking disinterestedly at a croissant. Next to her, looking less than pleased about where he sat, a man who was clearly ex-military and had the arms to prove it, openly studied Felicity, a thoughtful look on his face. The angry square-jawed man across the table from him played with the cuffs of a red hoodie.

Right before the meeting began, a blond woman strolled in. “Oh, hey,” she said, eyeing Felicity. “Fresh meat. You must be the hacker.”

“Felicity,” Felicity said, half-rising to shake her hand.

“I’m Sara.” The blonde popped her gum and tapped herself on the collarbone with her thumb. “Wirework and pyrotechnics.”

“Yeah, when your crap actually works,” said the brunette woman.

Sara grabbed a donut from the pastry plate. “Shut up, Helena,” she said around a mouthful of donut.

“Already off to a great start, I see,” said a new voice, and a man in a very crisp three-piece suit walked in. Felicity nearly gurgled. The man was far too pretty to be merely human. To prove it, he had the body of a god, and just enough scruffiness to keep him from seeming too neat. He looked directly at Felicity. “Hi. Welcome to my team.”

“Your team?” Felicity said. “But I thought—” She looked at Mr. Steele, who’d taken a place at the table.

“Walter handles all communication for me,” the man said. “My name is Oliver Queen.”

“Oliver Queen, died five years ago when his ship went down off the coast of China Oliver Queen?” Felicity asked. “That Oliver Queen?”

Oliver gave her a small smile. “I’m wondering how many times you can say my name in under a minute, Miss Smoak.”

“Felicity, and it’s a lot. Not that I, um, have reason to be saying your name over and ov—I’m gonna stop there,” Felicity said because Sara-the-pyrotechnics-expert was grinning broadly at the accidental innuendo. “I’m guessing you didn’t die five years ago, then.”

“It’s easier to be a con man when nobody knows who you are.”

“But you just told me who you are,” Felicity said.

Oliver shrugged. “You’re on the team now,” he said, like it was that simple. And apparently he was, for he introduced everybody. John Diggle was the muscle. Helena Bertinelli was their grifter. Sara Lance handled pyrotechnics and any “cat burglary,” as she put it. Roy Harper was their getaway driver. Walter Steele was their frontman, and Oliver Queen was the mastermind and benefactor.

Felicity wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask what happened to the last hacker.

“So that’s everybody,” Oliver said once he’d broken up an argument between Roy and Helena (the latter seemed to like arguing, Felicity noted, and stored that information away for later, should it be needed). He finally took a seat at the head of the table with his coffee. He pulled a set of reading glasses out of his pocket and it took everything Felicity had not to drool when he slipped them on.

It should be illegal to be that hot.

Because everybody else had finally opened their folders, she did the same. She frowned at the contents. There was a driver’s license and several credit cards in her name—some of them actually looked used, which was a nice touch that a lot of people neglected—along with a dossier of information on Merlyn Global. She’d heard of the company before, but she realized she was about to get a great deal more familiar when a company ID slipped onto her lap. She picked it up. So that was what they had done with the picture they had requested. At least her hair looked good in the photo.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Oliver said, holding up a picture of an attractive man with blue eyes and a roguish look on his face. “Our mark, Malcolm Merlyn. You may know him as the CEO and owner of Merlyn Global.”

“Are we supposed to know him as something else?” Roy asked, a snide note in his voice.

Oliver stared at the young man. “Not yet,” he said. He slid the picture to the middle of the table, where Malcolm Merlyn smiled up at all of them equally. “They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Well, mine has cooled long enough. The job will be simple. Meet the man who killed my father and my best friend.” He paused. “We’re going to destroy him.”


	24. On a Wing and a Player

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trapped In An Airport Together AU

“Think we’re going to get out of here tonight?” the man next to Felicity asked.

Felicity looked up from her laptop, more out of surprise than acknowledgement. Truthfully, as annoying as it was to be stuck in Vegas—coming home to visit her mom was a pain—she had her laptop and she’d already bypassed the paid wifi to nab her computer a very fast connection. So it was basically almost exactly like being in her apartment, except that MacArthur airport was always vaguely dirty and loud, and she was still in Vegas, the town she hated almost as much as she hated her mother’s new boyfriend.

Maybe someday the airline would unearth a new plane or fix the one currently sitting on the tarmac. Felicity doubted it. The red-eye flight to Starling City looked like it was canceled, and most of the others on the flight had lined up at the gate, hoping to get shuffled onto another flight.

Felicity figured the 6:40 a.m. flight she’d looked up on her laptop would be overcrowded.

“Probably not,” she said, and her brain informed her right then that, thanks to the fact that the guy next to her looked like a model, she probably wouldn’t get a full, sane sentence out of her mouth again until he had moved far away from her. At times, she really hated her brain. “Hope you don’t have to be anywhere urgent. Though if you’ve got an urgent meeting at three a.m., I have to wonder if you’re meeting drug dealers or something.”

The guy smiled. He’d be a lot cuter without the giant bags under his eyes. Actually, he looked a little pale and shaky. “Not meeting any drug dealers tonight,” he said. He stretched out his legs and blew out a long breath, clearly ill at ease. “Just want to get out of his hell hole.”

“You and me both,” Felicity said with a great deal of conviction.

He slanted an amused look in her direction. “No fun weekend for you in Vegas, huh?”

“There’s nothing fun about Vegas when Vegas still contains my mother.”

“Ah, mothers,” the guy said. “Mine is the reason I’m here as well.”

“Your mother made you come to Vegas?” He looked young, about her age, and his clothing suggested that a weekend full of Las Vegas’s particular brand of dusty debauchery wouldn’t be out of the question.

“She’s running for mayor of my hometown, so she flew some investors down to Vegas for a convention,” the guy said. “I didn’t make it back in time. The jet left without me.”

“You came down on a private jet, and now you’re flying an economy airline back?” Felicity boggled.

“If we ever get out of here, yeah, I am.” He sighed and rubbed both hands over his hair. “I’m starting to doubt we will.”

“No, we’ll just be like that guy in _The Terminal_ , forced to live here forever,” Felicity said. When she realized how that probably sounded, she winced, but the guy just grinned, which made her want to smile back. “I wonder if they’ll let us set up bunk beds.”

“Dibs on the top bunk.”

“All yours. I’m afraid of heights.”

The guy’s grin only broadened. “I’m Oliver, by the way.”

“Felicity. I’m still stuck on the part where you came here on a private jet and now you’re stuck with the rest of the population.”

“I may have missed it on purpose.” Oliver shifted his in his seat, moving his feet to settle against the red carpet. “Mom’s investors are boring, and I’ve had enough of them to last me a lifetime now. I promised her I’d play the good son and take them around to all of the high-roller areas.”

“Sounds _rough_ ,” Felicity said.

Oliver gave her a sly look. “I ate too much lobster. I am absolutely stuffed.”

“Stop, that’s my kryptonite, that’s not fair.” And right one cue, her stomach gurgled. She’d had dinner at her mom’s before the taxi had arrived to take her to the airport, but that had been ages ago. Really, she’d expected to be back in Starling City now asleep in bed with hot chocolate in her belly. And thinking of that only made her hungrier. “I bet it was really good lobster, too.”

“Flew in from Alaska this morning,” Oliver said.

“You’re mean.”

“A little. Do you want to maybe go get a bite to eat?”

“What?”

Oliver pointed at the plane on the tarmac and the crew of mechanics working hastily under the floodlights to fix whatever mechanical issues had taken place. “It’s going to take at least another hour before they get anything done,” he said, “and I saw a bar down that way. They probably don’t serve lobster, though.”

“Do you regularly invite complete strangers to airport bars with you?” Felicity asked as she slipped her laptop into her bag.

“We’re not complete strangers. I know your name is Felicia.”

“Felicity.”

“I was close.” But his smile said he’d been teasing her. “I’ll buy. The investors kept thinking I was some kind of errand boy and tipping me. I didn’t manage to blow it all on slots and hookers. Somebody should benefit from my weekend in hell.”

“Nobody’s going to benefit from mine,” Felicity said, thinking of her mother.

But Oliver shook his head. “I get company out of the deal, so that’s a benefit. See? We’re helping each other out.”

“That was an incredibly smooth line, and I can’t help but be impressed at the mastery. Seriously, I bow to you.”

The bar was mostly empty, though a few passengers from their gate trickled in after them. Felicity kept an eye on the text message alerts from the airline, but other than that, she was content to sit back and listen to her new friend. Oliver worked for his parents’ company doing “Incredibly boring stuff that will put me to sleep to even describe it, so please don’t make me.” He was a sports fan, had had the dubious honor of being kicked out of four schools before his father had threatened to cut him off, and apparently didn’t like tomatoes, as he picked them off of the burger he ordered. In turn, Felicity told him about her freelance work, her rather strained relationship with her mother, and thanks to the fact that her mouth moved faster than her brain, far too many details about all of it. Oliver, for his part, at least seemed fascinated, and he laughed at her jokes, which was all she really needed. They switched from beer to coffee, and she taught him how to play quarters.

When the plane finally took off at 4:10 that morning, it was only half full, as most of the passengers had been shuffled off to other flights. Oliver swapped back from First Class and took the window seat next to her. She’d taught him how to use Snapchat in the bar, so he took his time saving a bunch of pictures of the in-flight peanuts in weird formations “to bug Tommy with next time he’s drunk. He get so easily confused by snack food.”

“That’s a little mean,” Felicity said, though she laughed.

“He ditched me this weekend and left me to deal with a bunch of old men. He deserves it.”

“Oh, well, in that case.”

When they landed, Felicity’s eyelids were beginning to droop, making her grateful she’d taken a cab to the airport rather than her car. She was so tired she barely said a word to Oliver as they waited at baggage claim together, though she did thank him when he hauled her bag off of the carousel.

“Well,” he said once they’d wheeled themselves off to the cab stand. “I guess that’s it for our brief airport fling. See you around?”

“Thanks for dinner,” Felicity said, swaying on her feet a little.

“My pleasure,” he said, and he closed the door of her cab for her.

It took her five minutes after driving off to realize it: she hadn’t gotten his number. She groaned. Not that she really thought she would have had a chance with a seriously cute and rich guy like Oliver when they weren’t stuck in an airport, stranded by fate and circumstances, but it would have been _nice_. He hadn’t asked for her number, either.

She felt a deep sense of sadness settle over the weariness—and her phone buzzed.

It was a new Snapchat from a new user: OliverQueen85. A picture of airline peanuts filled her screen with a caption that read off a phone number and the words “think u forgot something. And you said the peanuts weren’t good for anything.”

Giggling now, she saved the snap and entered the number into her contacts.

There was finally something good about Vegas.


	25. Hatchling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Canary-al-Ghul Kidfic AU for RosieTwiggs

It takes Felicity weeks to notice, but it’s understandable. They’ve been averting the apocalypse (again), and it was kind of a rough time for everybody (but especially Oliver), and even Barry and his loyal Central City Crew had dropped by (upside: she and Iris had finally found time to get coffee). But it occurs to her in the quiet afterward that she hasn’t seen any activity about the Canary (or her incredibly-scary-assassin lover) on the monitoring system she’d set up to keep an eye on the bad guys of the world. She does feel bad when, after immediately scrambling for her cell phone and sending a panicked _Are you okay_??? text to Sara, she gets back a laughing emoji and a _what took you so long_ in reply.

And then _I’m good, but need your help. Big Belly on Thursday? My treat._

Since the text doesn’t say anything about Oliver or bringing backup, she tells her boys that she’s headed out to meet Sara and she’ll bring her back to the lair afterward.

Carly waves at her when she steps inside, and then jerks her thumb at a table in the back. She still doesn’t know anything about the vigilante lifestyle, but she knows their crowd well. “Could you do me a favor? They were asking for these,” she says, handing over a cup of crayons and a kid’s menu.

“Uh, okay,” Felicity says. Maybe Sara wants to color or something. The Canary has actually done weirder things.

The sight at the table, though, is enough to make her nearly drop the crayons all over the table. Sara’s there, wearing a bomber jacket and sunglasses pushed up into her hair. And she brought Nyssa (Felicity has actually grown to respect and somewhat like Nyssa, but that doesn’t mean she’s not terrifying). But sitting next to Nyssa in the booth is a little girl, no more than three years old, wearing a tiny Flash T-shirt and the cutest pair of green chucks Felicity has ever seen. Neither assassin notices her right away, so she has time to see Nyssa fondly reach down and pull the girl’s hair out of her face, then drop a kiss on top of her head.

Sara looks up and spots Felicity right then, and her grin just spreads. “You made it!” she says, rising to her feet and giving Felicity a giant hug. “Hi.”

“Oh my god, you really are okay,” Felicity says before she can stop herself. She did a lot of thinking about why Nyssa and Sara hadn’t been spotted, okay? And it’s kind of been keeping her up at night. “You look good.”

“Thanks. Motherhood agrees with me.”

“What?” Felicity asks, positive she’s misheard.

Sara’s smirk tells her that her hearing is still perfect. “Someone I want you to meet,” she says, and turns back to the table, where the little girl is watching Felicity shyly, her dark eyes evaluating. “Isra,” she says, and Felicity understands that that must be the girl’s name because the rest of what Sara says is in Arabic. Sara tried teaching her the basics once, but Felicity’s still learning.

Something Sara says, though, breaks the dam of suspicion, and just like that, the girl begins smiling and chattering back in Arabic—at Felicity.

“She says that you have hair like Sara’s,” Nyssa says, smirking at Felicity. “She likes it because it is gold.”

She’s never really talked to kids, even when she was one, but Isra is so cute that Felicity smiles back, crouching so she’s not towering. “Thank you,” she says. “Your hair is beautiful as well.”

Isra beams when Nyssa translates for her.

Five minutes later, Felicity has apparently made a friend for life by bringing Isra the crayons and the menu. The child climbs right into her lap and leans over the mat, coloring in the lines that Felicity draws for her.

“So, this is why you’ve been hiding,” she says, looking from Sara to Nyssa.

“Not hiding,” Sara says. “Retiring.”

“ _What_?” Felicity asks.

Nyssa moves a shoulder. “We are mothers now. Isra must be kept safe.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t judging, I was surprised. She’s your daughter?”

Both of the women nod, and Felicity wants to ask _how_ and _what happened_ , but she can already tell that neither of them is willing to discuss it in front of the little girl, no matter that her English is limited (though Felicity hears her babbling words like “frog!” and “human!” under her breath as she scribbles). So instead, she settles on, “Congratulations, seriously. That’s awesome news. I mean, she’s going to have the scariest moms on the planet, but I mean that in a good way.”

Nyssa actually preens, and Sara looks down to hide her smile.

“We need your help,” Nyssa says. “We wish to raise her here.”

“You do?” Felicity gawks. “Why?”

“We have family here. She will have many aunts and uncles.” Nyssa pauses, and Felicity mercifully bites her tongue before she can say anything about the League. Nyssa’s family situation is warped even worse than her own, and that’s saying something.

“Isra will want to know her grandpa,” Sara says. “We’re breaking the news to him tonight.”

“He’s going to be thrilled,” Felicity says without hesitation. “What did you need my help with, though? Um, I can babysit, but I don’t really speak Arabic, and—you need paperwork for her.”

“Please?” Sara asks. “We need to keep her identity hidden.”

Felicity looks at the little girl in her lap, bent so studiously over the drawing. “Isra, right?” she asks, looking at her friends. “Is that going to be Isra Lance or Isra al Ghul? Or Isra Lance-al-Ghul?”

“Lance,” they say at once.

“Give me twenty-four hours,” Felicity says, and both women practically melt with relief. “Though I’m a little offended that you thought I might not help out.”

Sara laughs. “Whatever, Aunt Felicity,” she says, lightly punching Felicity in the arm, and Isra looks up to beam at all three of them.


End file.
